The Works of Edgar Allan Poe _ Volume 1 Edgar Allan Poe 71279 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of Edgar Allan
Poe — Volume 1

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Contributor: James Russell Lowell
Nathaniel Parker Willis

Release date: April 1, 2000 [eBook #2147]
Most recently updated: September 13, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2147

Credits: David Widger and Carlo Traverso

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE — VOLUME 1 ***

T h e Wo r k s o f E d g a r A l l a n
Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven Edition

Contents

PREFACE
LIFE OF POE
DEATH OF POE
THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAALL
THE GOLD-BUG
FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)
THE BALLOON-HOAX
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
THE OVAL PORTRAIT

EDGAR ALLAN POE
AN APPRECIATION
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “never—never more!”

This stanza from “The Raven” was recommended by James Russell
Lowell as an inscription upon the Baltimore monument which marks the
resting place of Edgar Allan Poe, the most interesting and original figure in
American letters. And, to signify that peculiar musical quality of Poe’s
genius which inthralls every reader, Mr. Lowell suggested this additional
verse, from the “Haunted Palace”:
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling ever more,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

Born in poverty at Boston, January 19, 1809, dying under painful
circumstances at Baltimore, October 7, 1849, his whole literary career of
scarcely fifteen years a pitiful struggle for mere subsistence, his memory
malignantly misrepresented by his earliest biographer, Griswold, how
completely has truth at last routed falsehood and how magnificently has Poe
come into his own. For “The Raven,” first published in 1845, and, within a
few months, read, recited and parodied wherever the English language was
spoken, the half-starved poet received $10! Less than a year later his
brother poet, N. P. Willis, issued this touching appeal to the admirers of
genius on behalf of the neglected author, his dying wife and her devoted

mother, then living under very straitened circumstances in a little cottage at
Fordham, N. Y.:
“Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men of
genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary profession of our
country, whose temporary suspension of labor, from bodily illness, drops
him immediately to a level with the common objects of public charity.
There is no intermediate stopping-place, no respectful shelter, where, with
the delicacy due to genius and culture, he might secure aid, till, with
returning health, he would resume his labors, and his unmortified sense of
independence.”
And this was the tribute paid by the American public to the master who
had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery as
“The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Ligeia”; such fascinating hoaxes as
“The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall,” “MSS. Found in a Bottle,”
“A Descent Into a Maelstrom” and “The Balloon-Hoax”; such tales of
conscience as “William Wilson,” “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-tale
Heart,” wherein the retributions of remorse are portrayed with an awful
fidelity; such tales of natural beauty as “The Island of the Fay” and “The
Domain of Arnheim”; such marvellous studies in ratiocination as the “Gold-
bug,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Purloined Letter” and “The
Mystery of Marie Roget,” the latter, a recital of fact, demonstrating the
author’s wonderful capability of correctly analyzing the mysteries of the
human mind; such tales of illusion and banter as “The Premature Burial”
and “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether”; such bits of
extravaganza as “The Devil in the Belfry” and “The Angel of the Odd”;
such tales of adventure as “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”; such
papers of keen criticism and review as won for Poe the enthusiastic
admiration of Charles Dickens, although they made him many enemies
among the over-puffed minor American writers so mercilessly exposed by
him; such poems of beauty and melody as “The Bells,” “The Haunted
Palace,” “Tamerlane,” “The City in the Sea” and “The Raven.” What
delight for the jaded senses of the reader is this enchanted domain of
wonder-pieces! What an atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What
resources of imagination, construction, analysis and absolute art! One might
almost sympathize with Sarah Helen Whitman, who, confessing to a half
faith in the old superstition of the significance of anagrams, found, in the
transposed letters of Edgar Poe’s name, the words “a God-peer.” His mind,

she says, was indeed a “Haunted Palace,” echoing to the footfalls of angels
and demons.
“No man,” Poe himself wrote, “has recorded, no man has dared to record,
the wonders of his inner life.”
In these twentieth century days—of lavish recognition—artistic, popular
and material—of genius, what rewards might not a Poe claim!
Edgar’s father, a son of General David Poe, the American revolutionary
patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs. Hopkins, an English
actress, and, the match meeting with parental disapproval, had himself
taken to the stage as a profession. Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe’s beauty and
talent the young couple had a sorry struggle for existence. When Edgar, at
the age of two years, was orphaned, the family was in the utmost
destitution. Apparently the future poet was to be cast upon the world
homeless and friendless. But fate decreed that a few glimmers of sunshine
were to illumine his life, for the little fellow was adopted by John Allan, a
wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. A brother and sister, the remaining
children, were cared for by others.
In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money could
provide. He was petted, spoiled and shown off to strangers. In Mrs. Allan he
found all the affection a childless wife could bestow. Mr. Allan took much
pride in the captivating, precocious lad. At the age of five the boy recited,
with fine effect, passages of English poetry to the visitors at the Allan
house.
From his eighth to his thirteenth year he attended the Manor House
school, at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. It was the Rev. Dr.
Bransby, head of the school, whom Poe so quaintly portrayed in “William
Wilson.” Returning to Richmond in 1820 Edgar was sent to the school of
Professor Joseph H. Clarke. He proved an apt pupil. Years afterward
Professor Clarke thus wrote:
“While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine
poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to excel. He
was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He had a sensitive
and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His nature was entirely
free from selfishness.”
At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at
Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session. Official records

prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary, he gained a creditable
record as a student, although it is admitted that he contracted debts and had
“an ungovernable passion for card-playing.” These debts may have led to
his quarrel with Mr. Allan which eventually compelled him to make his own
way in the world.
Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced Calvin
Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small volume of his
verses under the title “Tamerlane and Other Poems.” In 1829 we find Poe in
Baltimore with another manuscript volume of verses, which was soon
published. Its title was “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems.” Neither of
these ventures seems to have attracted much attention.
Soon after Mrs. Allan’s death, which occurred in 1829, Poe, through the
aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United States Military Academy
at West Point. Any glamour which may have attached to cadet life in Poe’s
eyes was speedily lost, for discipline at West Point was never so severe nor
were the accommodations ever so poor. Poe’s bent was more and more
toward literature. Life at the academy daily became increasingly distasteful.
Soon he began to purposely neglect his studies and to disregard his duties,
his aim being to secure his dismissal from the United States service. In this
he succeeded. On March 7, 1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan’s
second marriage had thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary
career was to begin.
Poe’s first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the successful
competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore periodical for the best
prose story. “A MSS. Found in a Bottle” was the winning tale. Poe had
submitted six stories in a volume. “Our only difficulty,” says Mr. Latrobe,
one of the judges, “was in selecting from the rich contents of the volume.”
During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected with
various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia and New
York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough. N. P. Willis, who for
some time employed Poe as critic and sub-editor on the “Evening Mirror,”
wrote thus:
“With the highest admiration for Poe’s genius, and a willingness to let it
alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to
expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of
violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably

punctual and industrious. We saw but one presentiment of the man—a quiet,
patient, industrious and most gentlemanly person.
“We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in all
mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single glass of wine his
whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and, though none
of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.
In this reversed character, we repeat, it was never our chance to meet him.”
On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in
Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was but
twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular contributor to
the “Southern Literary Messenger.” It was not until a year later that the
bride and her widowed mother followed him thither.
Poe’s devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful features of
his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were inspired by her beauty
and charm. Consumption had marked her for its victim, and the constant
efforts of husband and mother were to secure for her all the comfort and
happiness their slender means permitted. Virginia died January 30, 1847,
when but twenty-five years of age. A friend of the family pictures the death-
bed scene—mother and husband trying to impart warmth to her by chafing
her hands and her feet, while her pet cat was suffered to nestle upon her
bosom for the sake of added warmth.
These verses from “Annabel Lee,” written by Poe in 1849, the last year
of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his child-wife:
I was a child and she was a child,
In a kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea.
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with the
“Southern Literary Messenger” in Richmond, Va.; “Graham’s Magazine”

and the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in Philadelphia; the “Evening Mirror,” the
“Broadway Journal,” and “Godey’s Lady’s Book” in New York.
Everywhere Poe’s life was one of unremitting toil. No tales and poems were
ever produced at a greater cost of brain and spirit.
Poe’s initial salary with the “Southern Literary Messenger,” to which he
contributed the first drafts of a number of his best-known tales, was $10 a
week! Two years later his salary was but $600 a year. Even in 1844, when
his literary reputation was established securely, he wrote to a friend
expressing his pleasure because a magazine to which he was to contribute
had agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages of criticism.
Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe never lost
faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent talents win admirers.
His genius has had no better description than in this stanza from William
Winter’s poem, read at the dedication exercises of the Actors’ Monument to
Poe, May 4, 1885, in New York:
He was the voice of beauty and of woe,
Passion and mystery and the dread unknown;
Pure as the mountains of perpetual snow,
Cold as the icy winds that round them moan,
Dark as the caves wherein earth’s thunders groan,
Wild as the tempests of the upper sky,
Sweet as the faint, far-off celestial tone of angel whispers, fluttering from on high,
And tender as love’s tear when youth and beauty die.

In the two and a half score years that have elapsed since Poe’s death he
has come fully into his own. For a while Griswold’s malignant
misrepresentations colored the public estimate of Poe as man and as writer.
But, thanks to J. H. Ingram, W. F. Gill, Eugene Didier, Sarah Helen
Whitman and others these scandals have been dispelled and Poe is seen as
he actually was—not as a man without failings, it is true, but as the finest
and most original genius in American letters. As the years go on his fame
increases. His works have been translated into many foreign languages. His
is a household name in France and England—in fact, the latter nation has
often uttered the reproach that Poe’s own country has been slow to
appreciate him. But that reproach, if it ever was warranted, certainly is
untrue.

W. H. R.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

By James Russell Lowell

The situation of American literature is anomalous. It has no centre, or, if
it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes. It is divided into many
systems, each revolving round its several suns, and often presenting to the
rest only the faint glimmer of a milk-and-water way. Our capital city, unlike
London or Paris, is not a great central heart from which life and vigor
radiate to the extremities, but resembles more an isolated umbilicus stuck
down as near as may be to the centre of the land, and seeming rather to tell
a legend of former usefulness than to serve any present need. Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, each has its literature almost more distinct than those of
the different dialects of Germany; and the Young Queen of the West has
also one of her own, of which some articulate rumor barely has reached us
dwellers by the Atlantic.
Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism of
contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give praise where it is
needed than where it is deserved, and friendship so often seduces the iron
stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like
an epitaph than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not
drop so poisonous a one into any man’s hat. The critic’s ink may suffer
equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of sugar. But it is easier to
be generous than to be just, and we might readily put faith in that fabulous
direction to the hiding place of truth, did we judge from the amount of
water which we usually find mixed with it.
Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of
imaginative men, but Mr. Poe’s biography displays a vicissitude and
peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with. The offspring of a romantic
marriage, and left an orphan at an early age, he was adopted by Mr. Allan, a

wealthy Virginian, whose barren marriage-bed seemed the warranty of a
large estate to the young poet.
Having received a classical education in England, he returned home and
entered the University of Virginia, where, after an extravagant course,
followed by reformation at the last extremity, he was graduated with the
highest honors of his class. Then came a boyish attempt to join the fortunes
of the insurgent Greeks, which ended at St. Petersburg, where he got into
difficulties through want of a passport, from which he was rescued by the
American consul and sent home. He now entered the military academy at
West Point, from which he obtained a dismissal on hearing of the birth of a
son to his adopted father, by a second marriage, an event which cut off his
expectations as an heir. The death of Mr. Allan, in whose will his name was
not mentioned, soon after relieved him of all doubt in this regard, and he
committed himself at once to authorship for a support. Previously to this,
however, he had published (in 1827) a small volume of poems, which soon
ran through three editions, and excited high expectations of its author’s
future distinction in the minds of many competent judges.
That no certain augury can be drawn from a poet’s earliest lispings there
are instances enough to prove. Shakespeare’s first poems, though brimful of
vigor and youth and picturesqueness, give but a very faint promise of the
directness, condensation and overflowing moral of his maturer works.
Perhaps, however, Shakespeare is hardly a case in point, his “Venus and
Adonis” having been published, we believe, in his twenty-sixth year.
Milton’s Latin verses show tenderness, a fine eye for nature, and a delicate
appreciation of classic models, but give no hint of the author of a new style
in poetry. Pope’s youthful pieces have all the sing-song, wholly unrelieved
by the glittering malignity and eloquent irreligion of his later productions.
Collins’ callow namby-pamby died and gave no sign of the vigorous and
original genius which he afterward displayed. We have never thought that
the world lost more in the “marvellous boy,” Chatterton, than a very
ingenious imitator of obscure and antiquated dulness. Where he becomes
original (as it is called), the interest of ingenuity ceases and he becomes
stupid. Kirke White’s promises were indorsed by the respectable name of
Mr. Southey, but surely with no authority from Apollo. They have the merit
of a traditional piety, which to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less
objectionable in the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober raiment of
prose. They do not clutch hold of the memory with the drowning pertinacity

of Watts; neither have they the interest of his occasional simple, lucky
beauty. Burns having fortunately been rescued by his humble station from
the contaminating society of the “Best models,” wrote well and naturally
from the first. Had he been unfortunate enough to have had an educated
taste, we should have had a series of poems from which, as from his letters,
we could sift here and there a kernel from the mass of chaff. Coleridge’s
youthful efforts give no promise whatever of that poetical genius which
produced at once the wildest, tenderest, most original and most purely
imaginative poems of modern times. Byron’s “Hours of Idleness” would
never find a reader except from an intrepid and indefatigable curiosity. In
Wordsworth’s first preludings there is but a dim foreboding of the creator of
an era. From Southey’s early poems, a safer augury might have been drawn.
They show the patient investigator, the close student of history, and the
unwearied explorer of the beauties of predecessors, but they give no
assurances of a man who should add aught to stock of household words, or
to the rarer and more sacred delights of the fireside or the arbor. The earliest
specimens of Shelley’s poetic mind already, also, give tokens of that
ethereal sublimation in which the spirit seems to soar above the regions of
words, but leaves its body, the verse, to be entombed, without hope of
resurrection, in a mass of them. Cowley is generally instanced as a wonder
of precocity. But his early insipidities show only a capacity for rhyming and
for the metrical arrangement of certain conventional combinations of
words, a capacity wholly dependent on a delicate physical organization, and
an unhappy memory. An early poem is only remarkable when it displays an
effort of reason, and the rudest verses in which we can trace some
conception of the ends of poetry, are worth all the miracles of smooth
juvenile versification. A school-boy, one would say, might acquire the
regular see-saw of Pope merely by an association with the motion of the
play-ground tilt.
Mr. Poe’s early productions show that he could see through the verse to
the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling that all the life and
grace of the one must depend on and be modulated by the will of the other.
We call them the most remarkable boyish poems that we have ever read. We
know of none that can compare with them for maturity of purpose, and a
nice understanding of the effects of language and metre. Such pieces are
only valuable when they display what we can only express by the
contradictory phrase of innate experience. We copy one of the shorter

poems, written when the author was only fourteen. There is a little dimness
in the filling up, but the grace and symmetry of the outline are such as few
poets ever attain. There is a smack of ambrosia about it.

TO HELEN
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

It is the tendency of the young poet that impresses us. Here is no
“withering scorn,” no heart “blighted” ere it has safely got into its teens,
none of the drawing-room sansculottism which Byron had brought into
vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a pleasant dash of the Greek Helicon
in it. The melody of the whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of that kind
which can be demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the fingers. It is
of that finer sort which the inner ear alone can estimate. It seems simple,
like a Greek column, because of its perfection. In a poem named “Ligeia,”
under which title he intended to personify the music of nature, our boy-poet
gives us the following exquisite picture:
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one,
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
Say, is it thy will,
On the breezes to toss,
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone albatross,
Incumbent on night,
As she on the air,

To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?

John Neal, himself a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too long
capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and similar passages,
and drew a proud horoscope for their author.
Mr. Poe had that indescribable something which men have agreed to call
genius. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and yet there is none
who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its power. Let talent writhe
and contort itself as it may, it has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and
sinew it may be, but the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and
its most perfect works have still one foot of clay. Genius claims kindred
with the very workings of Nature herself, so that a sunset shall seem like a
quotation from Dante, and if Shakespeare be read in the very presence of
the sea itself, his verses shall but seem nobler for the sublime criticism of
ocean. Talent may make friends for itself, but only genius can give to its
creations the divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm
cannot cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have disciples
who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a disciple. Great wits are
allied to madness only inasmuch as they are possessed and carried away by
their demon, while talent keeps him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in
the pommel of his sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual
world is ever rent asunder that it may perceive the ministers of good and
evil who throng continually around it. No man of mere talent ever flung his
inkstand at the devil.
When we say that Mr. Poe had genius, we do not mean to say that he has
produced evidence of the highest. But to say that he possesses it at all is to
say that he needs only zeal, industry, and a reverence for the trust reposed in
him, to achieve the proudest triumphs and the greenest laurels. If we may
believe the Longinuses and Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too
many geniuses of the loftiest order to render a place among them at all
desirable, whether for its hardness of attainment or its seclusion. The
highest peak of our Parnassus is, according to these gentlemen, by far the
most thickly settled portion of the country, a circumstance which must
make it an uncomfortable residence for individuals of a poetical
temperament, if love of solitude be, as immemorial tradition asserts, a
necessary part of their idiosyncrasy.

Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of vigorous yet
minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of imagination. The first of
these faculties is as needful to the artist in words, as a knowledge of
anatomy is to the artist in colors or in stone. This enables him to conceive
truly, to maintain a proper relation of parts, and to draw a correct outline,
while the second groups, fills up and colors. Both of these Mr. Poe has
displayed with singular distinctness in his prose works, the last
predominating in his earlier tales, and the first in his later ones. In judging
of the merit of an author, and assigning him his niche among our household
gods, we have a right to regard him from our own point of view, and to
measure him by our own standard. But, in estimating the amount of power
displayed in his works, we must be governed by his own design, and
placing them by the side of his own ideal, find how much is wanting. We
differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions of the objects of art. He esteems that
object to be the creation of Beauty, and perhaps it is only in the definition of
that word that we disagree with him. But in what we shall say of his
writings, we shall take his own standard as our guide. The temple of the god
of song is equally accessible from every side, and there is room enough in it
for all who bring offerings, or seek in oracle.
In his tales, Mr. Poe has chosen to exhibit his power chiefly in that dim
region which stretches from the very utmost limits of the probable into the
weird confines of superstition and unreality. He combines in a very
remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom found united; a power
of influencing the mind of the reader by the impalpable shadows of
mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin or a button
unnoticed. Both are, in truth, the natural results of the predominating
quality of his mind, to which we have before alluded, analysis. It is this
which distinguishes the artist. His mind at once reaches forward to the
effect to be produced. Having resolved to bring about certain emotions in
the reader, he makes all subordinate parts tend strictly to the common
centre. Even his mystery is mathematical to his own mind. To him X is a
known quantity all along. In any picture that he paints he understands the
chemical properties of all his colors. However vague some of his figures
may seem, however formless the shadows, to him the outline is as clear and
distinct as that of a geometrical diagram. For this reason Mr. Poe has no
sympathy with Mysticism. The Mystic dwells in the mystery, is enveloped
with it; it colors all his thoughts; it affects his optic nerve especially, and the

commonest things get a rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other hand,
is a spectator ab extra. He analyzes, he dissects, he watches
“with an eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine,”

for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and piston-rods, all
working to produce a certain end.
This analyzing tendency of his mind balances the poetical, and by giving
him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a wonderful reality into
his most unreal fancies. A monomania he paints with great power. He loves
to dissect one of these cancers of the mind, and to trace all the subtle
ramifications of its roots. In raising images of horror, also, he has strange
success, conveying to us sometimes by a dusky hint some terrible doubt
which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the task of
finishing the picture, a task to which only she is competent.
“For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles’ image stood his spear
Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.”

Besides the merit of conception, Mr. Poe’s writings have also that of
form.
His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It would be hard
to find a living author who had displayed such varied powers. As an
example of his style we would refer to one of his tales, “The House of
Usher,” in the first volume of his “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.”
It has a singular charm for us, and we think that no one could read it
without being strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its
author written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp him
as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In this tale occurs,
perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.
The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague and
the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror alone,
but only in combination with other qualities, as means of subjugating the
fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside
charm about her. Mr. Poe’s secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has
employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this his success is

so great and striking as to deserve the name of art, not artifice. We cannot
call his materials the noblest or purest, but we must concede to him the
highest merit of construction.
As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his analysis
of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the faculty of
perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His criticisms are, however,
distinguished for scientific precision and coherence of logic. They have the
exactness, and at the same time, the coldness of mathematical
demonstrations. Yet they stand in strikingly refreshing contrast with the
vague generalisms and sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth,
they are also without the heat of partisanship. They are especially valuable
as illustrating the great truth, too generally overlooked, that analytic power
is a subordinate quality of the critic.
On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has attained an
individual eminence in our literature which he will keep. He has given
proof of power and originality. He has done that which could only be done
once with success or safety, and the imitation or repetition of which would
produce weariness.

DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE

By N. P. Willis

The ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits imprisoned in one body,
equally powerful and having the complete mastery by turns-of one man,
that is to say, inhabited by both a devil and an angel seems to have been
realized, if all we hear is true, in the character of the extraordinary man
whose name we have written above. Our own impression of the nature of
Edgar A. Poe, differs in some important degree, however, from that which
has been generally conveyed in the notices of his death. Let us, before
telling what we personally know of him, copy a graphic and highly finished
portraiture, from the pen of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold, which appeared in a
recent number of the “Tribune”:
“Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October 7th.
This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The
poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had
readers in England and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he
had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested
principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its
most brilliant but erratic stars.
“His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its eloquence. His
voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and variably
expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who listened,
while his own face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination
quickened his blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was
from the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision of genius.
Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply defined, in terms
of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary
logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular
demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of

the most airy and delicious beauty, so minutely and distinctly, yet so
rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it stood
among his wonderful creations, till he himself dissolved the spell, and
brought his hearers back to common and base existence, by vulgar fancies
or exhibitions of the ignoblest passion.
“He was at all times a dreamer dwelling in ideal realms in heaven or hell
peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He walked the
streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or
with eyes upturned in passionate prayer (never for himself, for he felt, or
professed to feel, that he was already damned, but) for their happiness who
at the moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances introverted
to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom, he
would brave the wildest storms, and all night, with drenched garments and
arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as if the spirits that at such
times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals
his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his constitution
subjected him—close by the Aidenn where were those he loved—the
Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened
to receive the less fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin did
not involve the doom of death.
“He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will and
engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some controlling
sorrow. The remarkable poem of ‘The Raven’ was probably much more
nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very intimate with
him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. He was that bird’s
“‘Unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—never more.’

“Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his works,
whatever their design, traces of his personal character: elements of his
immortal being, in which the individual survives the person. While we read
the pages of the ‘Fall of the House of Usher,’ or of ‘Mesmeric Revelations,’
we see in the solemn and stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle
metaphysical analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was
most remarkable and peculiar in the author’s intellectual nature. But we see

here only the better phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster
action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith in man or
woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the
social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This
conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character.
Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the
sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope
with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the
success of honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in
Bulwer’s novel of ‘The Caxtons.’ Passion, in him, comprehended many of
the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth,
but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages
of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed
around him like a fiery atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-
confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into
prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not the worst,
for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellant
cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no
moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature,
little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that,
desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem
or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed—not shine, not
serve—succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which
galled his self-conceit.
“We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes upon his
literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in his earlier writings.
Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or three years—including much of
his best poetry—was in some sense biographical; in draperies of his
imagination, those who had taken the trouble to trace his steps, could
perceive, but slightly concealed, the figure of himself.”
Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-written sketch, let
us truthfully say:
Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in this city, Mr.
Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic and sub-editor. This
was our first personal acquaintance with him. He resided with his wife and

mother at Fordham, a few miles out of town, but was at his desk in the
office, from nine in the morning till the evening paper went to press. With
the highest admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone for
more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a
very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence
and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and
industrious. With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of
what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him
always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request that he
would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage
colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he
readily and courteously assented—far more yielding than most men, we
thought, on points so excusably sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead
in another periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with
us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but one
presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and most
gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good feeling by
his unvarying deportment and ability.
Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in hours of
leisure; but he frequently called on us afterward at our place of business,
and we met him often in the street—invariably the same sad mannered,
winning and refined gentleman, such as we had always known him. It was
by rumor only, up to the day of his death, that we knew of any other
development of manner or character. We heard, from one who knew him
well (what should be stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities),
that, with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the demon
became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication were
visible, his will was palpably insane. Possessing his reasoning faculties in
excited activity, at such times, and seeking his acquaintances with his
wonted look and memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase
of his natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting
arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character, we repeat, it was
never our chance to see him. We know it from hearsay, and we mention it in
connection with this sad infirmity of physical constitution; which puts it
upon very nearly the ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible
insanity.

The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of heart, of which Mr. Poe was
generally accused, seem to us referable altogether to this reversed phase of
his character. Under that degree of intoxication which only acted upon him
by demonizing his sense of truth and right, he doubtless said and did much
that was wholly irreconcilable with his better nature; but, when himself, and
as we knew him only, his modesty and unaffected humility, as to his own
deservings, were a constant charm to his character. His letters, of which the
constant application for autographs has taken from us, we are sorry to
confess, the greater portion, exhibited this quality very strongly. In one of
the carelessly written notes of which we chance still to retain possession,
for instance, he speaks of “The Raven”—that extraordinary poem which
electrified the world of imaginative readers, and has become the type of a
school of poetry of its own—and, in evident earnest, attributes its success to
the few words of commendation with which we had prefaced it in this
paper. It will throw light on his sane character to give a literal copy of the
note:

“FORDHAM, April 20, 1849

“MY DEAR WILLIS—The poem which I inclose, and which I am so vain
as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a paper
for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It pays well
as times go-but unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I
send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses
accompanying this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them
to light in the ‘Home Journal?’ If you can oblige me so far as to copy them,
I do not think it will be necessary to say ‘From the ——,’ that would be too
bad; and, perhaps, ‘From a late —— paper,’ would do.
“I have not forgotten how a ‘good word in season’ from you made ‘The
Raven,’ and made ‘Ulalume’ (which by-the-way, people have done me the
honor of attributing to you), therefore, I would ask you (if I dared) to say
something of these lines if they please you.

“Truly yours ever,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

In double proof of his earnest disposition to do the best for himself, and
of the trustful and grateful nature which has been denied him, we give
another of the only three of his notes which we chance to retain:

“FORDHAM, January 22, 1848.

“MY DEAR MR. WILLIS—I am about to make an effort at re-establishing
myself in the literary world, and feel that I may depend upon your aid.
“My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called ‘The Stylus,’ but it
would be useless to me, even when established, if not entirely out of the
control of a publisher. I mean, therefore, to get up a journal which shall be
my own at all points. With this end in view, I must get a list of at least five
hundred subscribers to begin with; nearly two hundred I have already. I
propose, however, to go South and West, among my personal and literary
friends—old college and West Point acquaintances—and see what I can do.
In order to get the means of taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the
Society Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February, and, that there may be no
cause of squabbling, my subject shall not be literary at all. I have chosen a
broad text: ‘The Universe.’
“Having thus given you the facts of the case, I leave all the rest to the
suggestions of your own tact and generosity. Gratefully, most gratefully,

“Your friend always,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, we think they sufficiently
prove the existence of the very qualities denied to Mr. Poe-humility,
willingness to persevere, belief in another’s friendship, and capability of
cordial and grateful friendship! Such he assuredly was when sane. Such
only he has invariably seemed to us, in all we have happened personally to
know of him, through a friendship of five or six years. And so much easier
is it to believe what we have seen and known, than what we hear of only,
that we remember him but with admiration and respect; these descriptions
of him, when morally insane, seeming to us like portraits, painted in
sickness, of a man we have only known in health.
But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible evidence that
there was goodness in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it we are obliged to venture

upon the lifting of the veil which sacredly covers grief and refinement in
poverty; but we think it may be excused, if so we can brighten the memory
of the poet, even were there not a more needed and immediate service
which it may render to the nearest link broken by his death.
Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe’s removal to this city was by a call which
we received from a lady who introduced herself to us as the mother of his
wife. She was in search of employment for him, and she excused her errand
by mentioning that he was ill, that her daughter was a confirmed invalid,
and that their circumstances were such as compelled her taking it upon
herself. The countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an
evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and sorrowful
tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its plea, her long-forgotten
but habitually and unconsciously refined manners, and her appealing and
yet appreciative mention of the claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at
once the presence of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity
can be. It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with
fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular level to be
well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty, and, with his sick wife,
frequently in want of the merest necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for
years, the most touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless
minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from office to office
with a poem, or an article on some literary subject, to sell, sometimes
simply pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and begging for him,
mentioning nothing but that “he was ill,” whatever might be the reason for
his writing nothing, and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress,
suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a doubt of him,
or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his genius and good intentions.
Her daughter died a year and a half since, but she did not desert him. She
continued his ministering angel—living with him, caring for him, guarding
him against exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid
grief and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his self
abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering, begging for him still. If
woman’s devotion, born with a first love, and fed with human passion,
hallow its object, as it is allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this—
pure, disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible spirit—say for him
who inspired it?

We have a letter before us, written by this lady, Mrs. Clemm, on the
morning in which she heard of the death of this object of her untiring care.
It is merely a request that we would call upon her, but we will copy a few of
its words—sacred as its privacy is—to warrant the truth of the picture we
have drawn above, and add force to the appeal we wish to make for her:
“I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie.... Can you
give me any circumstances or particulars?... Oh! do not desert your poor
friend in his bitter affliction!... Ask Mr. —— to come, as I must deliver a
message to him from my poor Eddie.... I need not ask you to notice his
death and to speak well of him. I know you will. But say what an
affectionate son he was to me, his poor desolate mother...”
To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there, between the
relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the story of such a
woman’s unrewarded devotion! Risking what we do, in delicacy, by making
it public, we feel—other reasons aside—that it betters the world to make
known that there are such ministrations to its erring and gifted. What we
have said will speak to some hearts. There are those who will be glad to
know how the lamp, whose light of poetry has beamed on their far-away
recognition, was watched over with care and pain, that they may send to
her, who is more darkened than they by its extinction, some token of their
sympathy. She is destitute and alone. If any, far or near, will send to us what
may aid and cheer her through the remainder of her life, we will joyfully
place it in her hands.

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE
HANS PFAAL (*1)

By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of
philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a
nature so completely unexpected—so entirely novel—so utterly at variance
with preconceived opinions—as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere
this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and
astronomy together by the ears.
It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not positive about the date),
a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically mentioned, were
assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the well-conditioned city
of Rotterdam. The day was warm—unusually so for the season—there was
hardly a breath of air stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at
being now and then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary
duration, that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a
fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a
slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly: the
clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded; and, in an instant afterward,
ten thousand faces were upturned toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes
descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a
shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara,
resounded long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of
Rotterdam.
The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From behind
the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud already
mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a
queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped, so
whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and
never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood

open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and
devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one
could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von
Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so, as
nothing more reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his
pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye
towards the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted
significantly—then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed
again.
In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly city,
came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much smoke. In a
very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately discerned. It
appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a species of balloon; but surely no
such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask,
ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man
in Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or rather
at some distance above their noses was the identical thing in question, and
composed, I have it on the best authority, of the precise material which no
one had ever before known to be used for a similar purpose. It was an
egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the
shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little
or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this
similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer
inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its apex, and,
around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of little instruments,
resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a continual tinkling to the tune of
Betty Martin. But still worse. Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this
fantastic machine, there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat,
with a brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black
band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many
citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly before;
and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of familiarity;
while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon sight of it, uttered an exclamation of
joyful surprise, and declared it to be the identical hat of her good man
himself. Now this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall,
with three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about five
years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and up to the date

of this narrative all attempts had failed of obtaining any intelligence
concerning them whatsoever. To be sure, some bones which were thought to
be human, mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately
discovered in a retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people
went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been
committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans Pfaall and his
associates. But to return.
The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently distinct
view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very droll little
somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in height; but this
altitude, little as it was, would have been sufficient to destroy his
equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the
intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged on
to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more than
proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a rotundity highly absurd.
His feet, of course, could not be seen at all, although a horny substance of
suspicious nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom
of the car, or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were
enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into a queue
behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory; his
eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although wrinkled with
age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any kind or character
there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head.
This odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue satin,
with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles at the knees. His
vest was of some bright yellow material; a white taffety cap was set jauntily
on one side of his head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk
handkerchief enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon
his bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.
Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from the
surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized with a fit
of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make any nearer approach to
terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas bag,
which, he lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an instant. He
then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract from a side-
pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book. This he poised

suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air of extreme surprise, and
was evidently astonished at its weight. He at length opened it, and drawing
there from a huge letter sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with
red tape, let it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut, still
greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther business to detain
him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make busy preparations for
departure; and it being necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable
him to reascend, the half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another,
without taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of
them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him
over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man
in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed, however, that the great Underduk
suffered this impertinence on the part of the little old man to pass off with
impunity. It is said, on the contrary, that during each and every one of his
one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than one-and-twenty
distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to which he held fast the whole
time with all his might, and to which he intends holding fast until the day of
his death.
In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away
above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to that from
which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever to the wondering
eyes of the good citizens of Rotterdam. All attention was now directed to
the letter, the descent of which, and the consequences attending thereupon,
had proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal dignity to his
Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk.
That functionary, however, had not failed, during his circumgyratory
movements, to bestow a thought upon the important subject of securing the
packet in question, which was seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the
most proper hands, being actually addressed to himself and Professor Rub-
a-dub, in their official capacities of President and Vice-President of the
Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by those
dignitaries upon the spot, and found to contain the following extraordinary,
and indeed very serious, communication:
“To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and Vice-
President of the States’ College of Astronomers, in the city of Rotterdam.

“Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan,
by name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who, with
three others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago, in a manner
which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden, and
extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your Excellencies, I, the
writer of this communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself. It is
well known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of forty years
I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at the head of the
alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at the time of my disappearance.
My ancestors have also resided therein time out of mind—they, as well as
myself, steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession
of mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years, that the
heads of all the people have been set agog with politics, no better business
than my own could an honest citizen of Rotterdam either desire or deserve.
Credit was good, employment was never wanting, and on all hands there
was no lack of either money or good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon
began to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism, and
all that sort of thing. People who were formerly, the very best customers in
the world, had now not a moment of time to think of us at all. They had, so
they said, as much as they could do to read about the revolutions, and keep
up with the march of intellect and the spirit of the age. If a fire wanted
fanning, it could readily be fanned with a newspaper, and as the government
grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron acquired durability in
proportion, for, in a very short time, there was not a pair of bellows in all
Rotterdam that ever stood in need of a stitch or required the assistance of a
hammer. This was a state of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as
a rat, and, having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length
became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the most
convenient method of putting an end to my life. Duns, in the meantime, left
me little leisure for contemplation. My house was literally besieged from
morning till night, so that I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged
tiger against the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular
who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my
door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed
the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy as to get them within my
clutches; and I believe nothing in the world but the pleasure of this
anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of suicide into immediate

execution, by blowing my brains out with a blunderbuss. I thought it best,
however, to dissemble my wrath, and to treat them with promises and fair
words, until, by some good turn of fate, an opportunity of vengeance should
be afforded me.
“One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the most
obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I chanced to stumble
against the corner of a bookseller’s stall. Seeing a chair close at hand, for
the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly into it, and, hardly knowing
why, opened the pages of the first volume which came within my reach. It
proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on Speculative Astronomy, written
either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman of somewhat similar
name. I had some little tincture of information on matters of this nature, and
soon became more and more absorbed in the contents of the book, reading
it actually through twice before I awoke to a recollection of what was
passing around me. By this time it began to grow dark, and I directed my
steps toward home. But the treatise had made an indelible impression on my
mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I revolved carefully over
in my memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible reasonings of the
writer. There are some particular passages which affected my imagination in
a powerful and extraordinary manner. The longer I meditated upon these the
more intense grew the interest which had been excited within me. The
limited nature of my education in general, and more especially my
ignorance on subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from
rendering me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or
inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in
consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I was
vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to doubt whether those crude
ideas which, arising in ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance, may not
often in effect possess all the force, the reality, and other inherent
properties, of instinct or intuition; whether, to proceed a step farther,
profundity itself might not, in matters of a purely speculative nature, be
detected as a legitimate source of falsity and error. In other words, I
believed, and still do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence,
superficial, and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses
where we seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas. In the

contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly that I could not
distinguish a star with nearly as much precision, when I gazed on it with
earnest, direct and undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye only to
glance in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware that this
apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the visual area being less
susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the exterior portions of the
retina. This knowledge, and some of another kind, came afterwards in the
course of an eventful five years, during which I have dropped the prejudices
of my former humble situation in life, and forgotten the bellows-mender in
far different occupations. But at the epoch of which I speak, the analogy
which a casual observation of a star offered to the conclusions I had already
drawn, struck me with the force of positive conformation, and I then finally
made up my mind to the course which I afterwards pursued.
“It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My
mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole night
buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and contriving again to
escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired eagerly to the bookseller’s
stall, and laid out what little ready money I possessed, in the purchase of
some volumes of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at
home safely with these, I devoted every spare moment to their perusal, and
soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as I thought sufficient
for the execution of my plan. In the intervals of this period, I made every
endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had given me so much
annoyance. In this I finally succeeded—partly by selling enough of my
household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly by a
promise of paying the balance upon completion of a little project which I
told them I had in view, and for assistance in which I solicited their
services. By these means—for they were ignorant men—I found little
difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.
“Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife and with
the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property I had
remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various pretences, and
without paying any attention to my future means of repayment, no
inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing I
proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of
twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and
deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles

necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary
dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as possible, and
gave her all requisite information as to the particular method of proceeding.
In the meantime I worked up the twine into a net-work of sufficient
dimensions; rigged it with a hoop and the necessary cords; bought a
quadrant, a compass, a spy-glass, a common barometer with some
important modifications, and two astronomical instruments not so generally
known. I then took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired
situation east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty
gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes, three inches in
diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in length; a quantity of a particular
metallic substance, or semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen
demijohns of a very common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter
materials is a gas never yet generated by any other person than myself—or
at least never applied to any similar purpose. The secret I would make no
difficulty in disclosing, but that it of right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in
France, by whom it was conditionally communicated to myself. The same
individual submitted to me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a
method of constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain animal,
through which substance any escape of gas was nearly an impossibility. I
found it, however, altogether too expensive, and was not sure, upon the
whole, whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc, was not
equally as good. I mention this circumstance, because I think it probable
that hereafter the individual in question may attempt a balloon ascension
with the novel gas and material I have spoken of, and I do not wish to
deprive him of the honor of a very singular invention.
“On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a hole two
feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle twenty-five feet in
diameter. In the centre of this circle, being the station designed for the large
cask, I also dug a hole three feet in depth. In each of the five smaller holes,
I deposited a canister containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg
holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. These—the keg
and canisters—I connected in a proper manner with covered trains; and
having let into one of the canisters the end of about four feet of slow match,
I covered up the hole, and placed the cask over it, leaving the other end of
the match protruding about an inch, and barely visible beyond the cask. I

then filled up the remaining holes, and placed the barrels over them in their
destined situation.
“Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot, and
there secreted, one of M. Grimm’s improvements upon the apparatus for
condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this machine, however, to
require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the purposes to
which I intended making it applicable. But, with severe labor and
unremitting perseverance, I at length met with entire success in all my
preparations. My balloon was soon completed. It would contain more than
forty thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I calculated, with
all my implements, and, if I managed rightly, with one hundred and
seventy-five pounds of ballast into the bargain. It had received three coats
of varnish, and I found the cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk
itself, quite as strong and a good deal less expensive.
“Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of secrecy
in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit to the bookseller’s
stall; and promising, on my part, to return as soon as circumstances would
permit, I gave her what little money I had left, and bade her farewell.
Indeed I had no fear on her account. She was what people call a notable
woman, and could manage matters in the world without my assistance. I
believe, to tell the truth, she always looked upon me as an idle boy, a mere
make-weight, good for nothing but building castles in the air, and was
rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark night when I bade her good-bye,
and taking with me, as aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me
so much trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements, by
a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were deposited. We
there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded immediately to business.
“It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was dark; there was
not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, rendered us
very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon,
which, in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow
rather heavy with the moisture; the powder also was liable to damage. I
therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence, pounding down
ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid in the others. They did not
cease, however, importuning me with questions as to what I intended to do
with all this apparatus, and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible

labor I made them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what
good was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin, merely to take a
part in such horrible incantations. I began to get uneasy, and worked away
with all my might, for I verily believe the idiots supposed that I had entered
into a compact with the devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was
nothing better than it should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of their
leaving me altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them by promises of
payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could bring the present business to
a termination. To these speeches they gave, of course, their own
interpretation; fancying, no doubt, that at all events I should come into
possession of vast quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I
owed, and a trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say they
cared very little what became of either my soul or my carcass.
“In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently inflated. I
attached the car, therefore, and put all my implements in it—not forgetting
the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of water, and a large quantity of
provisions, such as pemmican, in which much nutriment is contained in
comparatively little bulk. I also secured in the car a pair of pigeons and a
cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my
departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on the ground, as if by accident, I took
the opportunity, in stooping to pick it up, of igniting privately the piece of
slow match, whose end, as I said before, protruded a very little beyond the
lower rim of one of the smaller casks. This manoeuvre was totally
unperceived on the part of the three duns; and, jumping into the car, I
immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth, and was pleased
to find that I shot upward, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-
five pounds of leaden ballast, and able to have carried up as many more.
“Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when, roaring
and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous manner,
came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur, and legs and
arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal, that my very heart
sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of the car, trembling with
unmitigated terror. Indeed, I now perceived that I had entirely overdone the
business, and that the main consequences of the shock were yet to be
experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I felt all the blood in my
body rushing to my temples, and immediately thereupon, a concussion,
which I shall never forget, burst abruptly through the night and seemed to

rip the very firmament asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I
did not fail to attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded
myself, to its proper cause—my situation directly above it, and in the line of
its greatest power. But at the time, I thought only of preserving my life. The
balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then whirled round and
round with horrible velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a
drunken man, hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me
dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my face
outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length, which hung
accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the wicker-work, and in
which, as I fell, my left foot became most providentially entangled. It is
impossible—utterly impossible—to form any adequate idea of the horror of
my situation. I gasped convulsively for breath—a shudder resembling a fit
of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame—I felt my eyes
starting from their sockets—a horrible nausea overwhelmed me—and at
length I fainted away.
“How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It must,
however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I partially recovered
the sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a prodigious
height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land to be discovered
far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My sensations, however,
upon thus recovering, were by no means so rife with agony as might have
been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient madness in the calm
survey which I began to take of my situation. I drew up to my eyes each of
my hands, one after the other, and wondered what occurrence could have
given rise to the swelling of the veins, and the horrible blackness of the
fingernails. I afterward carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly,
and feeling it with minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself
that it was not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than my balloon.
Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in both my breeches pockets, and,
missing therefrom a set of tablets and a toothpick case, endeavored to
account for their disappearance, and not being able to do so, felt
inexpressibly chagrined. It now occurred to me that I suffered great
uneasiness in the joint of my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my
situation began to glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was
neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a
kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in

extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked
upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt. For a few
minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I have a distinct
recollection of frequently compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the
side of my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces
common to men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of
intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought, sufficiently collected my
ideas, I now, with great caution and deliberation, put my hands behind my
back, and unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband
of my inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat
rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however,
after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle, and was glad to
find them remain firm in that position. Holding the instrument thus obtained
within my teeth, I now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to
rest several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it was at
length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made fast the buckle,
and the other end I tied, for greater security, tightly around my wrist.
Drawing now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion of muscular
force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing the buckle over the car,
and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-
work.
“My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle of
about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore
only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far from it, I still lay
nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for the change of situation which
I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the car considerably outwards from
my position, which was accordingly one of the most imminent and deadly
peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell in the first
instance, from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the
balloon, instead of turned outwardly from it, as it actually was; or if, in the
second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over
the upper edge, instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,—I
say it may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I
should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now
accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would have
been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore every reason to be grateful;
although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be anything at all, and

hung for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner,
without making the slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly
tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly
away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling sense of
utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the
vessels of my head and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits
with madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within their proper
channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my perception of the
danger, merely served to deprive me of the self-possession and courage to
encounter it. But this weakness was, luckily for me, of no very long
duration. In good time came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and, with
frantic cries and struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length,
clutching with a vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person
over it, and fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
“It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself sufficiently
to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then, however, examined it
with attention, and found it, to my great relief, uninjured. My implements
were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor provisions.
Indeed, I had so well secured them in their places, that such an accident was
entirely out of the question. Looking at my watch, I found it six o’clock. I
was still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave a present altitude of
three and three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me in the ocean, lay a
small black object, slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and
in every way bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys
called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon it, I plainly discerned
it to be a British ninety four-gun ship, close-hauled, and pitching heavily in
the sea with her head to the W.S.W. Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the
ocean and the sky, and the sun, which had long arisen.
“It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the object
of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind that distressed
circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to the resolution of
committing suicide. It was not, however, that to life itself I had any positive
disgust, but that I was harassed beyond endurance by the adventitious
miseries attending my situation. In this state of mind, wishing to live, yet
wearied with life, the treatise at the stall of the bookseller opened a resource
to my imagination. I then finally made up my mind. I determined to depart,
yet live—to leave the world, yet continue to exist—in short, to drop

enigmas, I resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could, to
the moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than I actually
am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the considerations which led me to
believe that an achievement of this nature, although without doubt difficult,
and incontestably full of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond
the confines of the possible.
“The moon’s actual distance from the earth was the first thing to be
attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the centres of the
two planets is 59.9643 of the earth’s equatorial radii, or only about 237,000
miles. I say the mean or average interval, but it must be borne in mind that
the form of the moon’s orbit being an ellipse of eccentricity amounting to
no less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis of the ellipse itself, and the
earth’s centre being situated in its focus, if I could, in any manner, contrive
to meet the moon, as it were, in its perigee, the above mentioned distance
would be materially diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this
possibility, it was very certain that, at all events, from the 237,000 miles I
would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4,000, and the radius of
the moon, say 1,080, in all 5,080, leaving an actual interval to be traversed,
under average circumstances, of 231,920 miles. Now this, I reflected, was
no very extraordinary distance. Travelling on land has been repeatedly
accomplished at the rate of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater
speed may be anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no
more than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were, however,
many particulars inducing me to believe that my average rate of travelling
might possibly very much exceed that of thirty miles per hour, and, as these
considerations did not fail to make a deep impression upon my mind, I will
mention them more fully hereafter.
“The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater importance.
From indications afforded by the barometer, we find that, in ascensions
from the surface of the earth we have, at the height of 1,000 feet, left below
us about one-thirtieth of the entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600
we have ascended through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not
far from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the
material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air incumbent
upon our globe. It is also calculated that at an altitude not exceeding the
hundredth part of the earth’s diameter—that is, not exceeding eighty miles
—the rarefaction would be so excessive that animal life could in no manner

be sustained, and, moreover, that the most delicate means we possess of
ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere would be inadequate to assure
us of its existence. But I did not fail to perceive that these latter calculations
are founded altogether on our experimental knowledge of the properties of
air, and the mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in
what may be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of the
earth itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted that animal life is
and must be essentially incapable of modification at any given unattainable
distance from the surface. Now, all such reasoning and from such data must,
of course, be simply analogical. The greatest height ever reached by man
was that of 25,000 feet, attained in the aeronautic expedition of Messieurs
Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a moderate altitude, even when compared
with the eighty miles in question; and I could not help thinking that the
subject admitted room for doubt and great latitude for speculation.
“But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given altitude, the
ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any farther ascension is by no
means in proportion to the additional height ascended (as may be plainly
seen from what has been stated before), but in a ratio constantly decreasing.
It is therefore evident that, ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally
speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be found. It
must exist, I argued; although it may exist in a state of infinite rarefaction.
“On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been wanting to
prove the existence of a real and definite limit to the atmosphere, beyond
which there is absolutely no air whatsoever. But a circumstance which has
been left out of view by those who contend for such a limit seemed to me,
although no positive refutation of their creed, still a point worthy very
serious investigation. On comparing the intervals between the successive
arrivals of Encke’s comet at its perihelion, after giving credit, in the most
exact manner, for all the disturbances due to the attractions of the planets, it
appears that the periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major
axis of the comet’s ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but perfectly regular
decrease. Now, this is precisely what ought to be the case, if we suppose a
resistance experienced from the comet from an extremely rare ethereal
medium pervading the regions of its orbit. For it is evident that such a
medium must, in retarding the comet’s velocity, increase its centripetal, by
weakening its centrifugal force. In other words, the sun’s attraction would
be constantly attaining greater power, and the comet would be drawn nearer

at every revolution. Indeed, there is no other way of accounting for the
variation in question. But again:—The real diameter of the same comet’s
nebulosity is observed to contract rapidly as it approaches the sun, and
dilate with equal rapidity in its departure towards its aphelion. Was I not
justifiable in supposing with M. Valz, that this apparent condensation of
volume has its origin in the compression of the same ethereal medium I
have spoken of before, and which is only denser in proportion to its solar
vicinity? The lenticular-shaped phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light,
was a matter worthy of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics,
and which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from the
horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction of the sun’s
equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature of a rare atmosphere
extending from the sun outward, beyond the orbit of Venus at least, and I
believed indefinitely farther.(*2) Indeed, this medium I could not suppose
confined to the path of the comet’s ellipse, or to the immediate
neighborhood of the sun. It was easy, on the contrary, to imagine it
pervading the entire regions of our planetary system, condensed into what
we call atmosphere at the planets themselves, and perhaps at some of them
modified by considerations, so to speak, purely geological.
“Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further hesitation.
Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere essentially the
same as at the surface of the earth, I conceived that, by means of the very
ingenious apparatus of M. Grimm, I should readily be enabled to condense
it in sufficient quantity for the purposes of respiration. This would remove
the chief obstacle in a journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some money
and great labor in adapting the apparatus to the object intended, and
confidently looked forward to its successful application, if I could manage
to complete the voyage within any reasonable period. This brings me back
to the rate at which it might be possible to travel.
“It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions from the
earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively moderate. Now, the
power of elevation lies altogether in the superior lightness of the gas in the
balloon compared with the atmospheric air; and, at first sight, it does not
appear probable that, as the balloon acquires altitude, and consequently
arrives successively in atmospheric strata of densities rapidly diminishing—
I say, it does not appear at all reasonable that, in this its progress upwards,
the original velocity should be accelerated. On the other hand, I was not

aware that, in any recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the
absolute rate of ascent; although such should have been the case, if on
account of nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through balloons
ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material than the ordinary
varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect of such escape was only
sufficient to counterbalance the effect of some accelerating power. I now
considered that, provided in my passage I found the medium I had
imagined, and provided that it should prove to be actually and essentially
what we denominate atmospheric air, it could make comparatively little
difference at what extreme state of rarefaction I should discover it—that is
to say, in regard to my power of ascending—for the gas in the balloon
would not only be itself subject to rarefaction partially similar (in
proportion to the occurrence of which, I could suffer an escape of so much
as would be requisite to prevent explosion), but, being what it was, would,
at all events, continue specifically lighter than any compound whatever of
mere nitrogen and oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation would
be constantly diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the distances, and
thus, with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I should at length arrive in
those distant regions where the force of the earth’s attraction would be
superseded by that of the moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not
think it worth while to encumber myself with more provisions than would
be sufficient for a period of forty days.
“There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned me some
little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in balloon ascensions to any
considerable height, besides the pain attending respiration, great uneasiness
is experienced about the head and body, often accompanied with bleeding at
the nose, and other symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and
more inconvenient in proportion to the altitude attained.(*3) This was a
reflection of a nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable that these
symptoms would increase indefinitely, or at least until terminated by death
itself? I finally thought not. Their origin was to be looked for in the
progressive removal of the customary atmospheric pressure upon the
surface of the body, and consequent distention of the superficial blood-
vessels—not in any positive disorganization of the animal system, as in the
case of difficulty in breathing, where the atmospheric density is chemically
insufficient for the due renovation of blood in a ventricle of the heart.
Unless for default of this renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why

life could not be sustained even in a vacuum; for the expansion and
compression of chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely
muscular, and the cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I
conceived that, as the body should become habituated to the want of
atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually diminish—
and to endure them while they continued, I relied with confidence upon the
iron hardihood of my constitution.
“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some, though by
no means all, the considerations which led me to form the project of a lunar
voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you the result of an attempt so
apparently audacious in conception, and, at all events, so utterly
unparalleled in the annals of mankind.
“Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say three miles
and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a quantity of feathers, and found
that I still ascended with sufficient rapidity; there was, therefore, no
necessity for discharging any ballast. I was glad of this, for I wished to
retain with me as much weight as I could carry, for reasons which will be
explained in the sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing
with great freedom, and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was
lying very demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the
pigeons with an air of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to
prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains of
rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.
“At twenty minutes past six o’clock, the barometer showed an elevation
of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect seemed unbounded.
Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of spherical geometry, what a
great extent of the earth’s area I beheld. The convex surface of any segment
of a sphere is, to the entire surface of the sphere itself, as the versed sine of
the segment to the diameter of the sphere. Now, in my case, the versed sine
—that is to say, the thickness of the segment beneath me—was about equal
to my elevation, or the elevation of the point of sight above the surface. ‘As
five miles, then, to eight thousand,’ would express the proportion of the
earth’s area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as much as a sixteen-
hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea appeared
unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the spy-glass, I could perceive
it to be in a state of violent agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having

drifted away, apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at
intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about the ears—still, however,
breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to suffer no
inconvenience whatsoever.
“At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long series of
dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my condensing
apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be sure, a singular
recontre, for I had not believed it possible that a cloud of this nature could
be sustained at so great an elevation. I thought it best, however, to throw out
two five-pound pieces of ballast, reserving still a weight of one hundred and
sixty-five pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and
perceived immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid
lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to kindle up,
throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and glowing charcoal.
This, it must be remembered, was in the broad light of day. No fancy may
picture the sublimity which might have been exhibited by a similar
phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of the night. Hell itself might
have been found a fitting image. Even as it was, my hair stood on end,
while I gazed afar down within the yawning abysses, letting imagination
descend, as it were, and stalk about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy
gulfs, and red ghastly chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had
indeed made a narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while
longer within the cloud—that is to say—had not the inconvenience of
getting wet, determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin would
have been the consequence. Such perils, although little considered, are
perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in balloons. I had by this
time, however, attained too great an elevation to be any longer uneasy on
this head.
“I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o’clock the barometer indicated
an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began to find great
difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful;
and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length
discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite fast from the drums of
my ears. My eyes, also, gave me great uneasiness. Upon passing the hand
over them they seemed to have protruded from their sockets in no
inconsiderable degree; and all objects in the car, and even the balloon itself,

appeared distorted to my vision. These symptoms were more than I had
expected, and occasioned me some alarm. At this juncture, very
imprudently, and without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-
pound pieces of ballast. The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained, carried
me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied
stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my
expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized with a spasm which lasted
for more than five minutes, and even when this, in a measure, ceased, I
could catch my breath only at long intervals, and in a gasping manner—
bleeding all the while copiously at the nose and ears, and even slightly at
the eyes. The pigeons appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to
escape; while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of
her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of
poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been
guilty in discharging the ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I
anticipated nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. The
physical suffering I underwent contributed also to render me nearly
incapable of making any exertion for the preservation of my life. I had,
indeed, little power of reflection left, and the violence of the pain in my
head seemed to be greatly on the increase. Thus I found that my senses
would shortly give way altogether, and I had already clutched one of the
valve ropes with the view of attempting a descent, when the recollection of
the trick I had played the three creditors, and the possible consequences to
myself, should I return, operated to deter me for the moment. I lay down in
the bottom of the car, and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far
succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood. Having no
lancet, however, I was constrained to perform the operation in the best
manner I was able, and finally succeeded in opening a vein in my right arm,
with the blade of my penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing
when I experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a
moderate basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me
entirely. I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt getting on my
feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as I could, I lay still
for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of this time I arose, and found
myself freer from absolute pain of any kind than I had been during the last
hour and a quarter of my ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however,
was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be

positively necessary to make use of my condenser. In the meantime, looking
toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed away upon my coat, I
discovered to my infinite surprise, that she had taken the opportunity of my
indisposition to bring into light a litter of three little kittens. This was an
addition to the number of passengers on my part altogether unexpected; but
I was pleased at the occurrence. It would afford me a chance of bringing to
a kind of test the truth of a surmise, which, more than anything else, had
influenced me in attempting this ascension. I had imagined that the habitual
endurance of the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the
cause, or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a distance
above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer uneasiness in an
equal degree with their mother, I must consider my theory in fault, but a
failure to do so I should look upon as a strong confirmation of my idea.
“By eight o’clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my rate of
ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progression would have
been apparent in a slight degree even had I not discharged the ballast which
I did. The pains in my head and ears returned, at intervals, with violence,
and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I
suffered much less than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at
every moment, with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was
attended with a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked
the condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.
“The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I could
see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which every
moment gained a deeper and a deeper tint of blue and began already to
assume a slight appearance of convexity. At a vast distance to the eastward,
although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of Great Britain, the
entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a small portion of the
northern part of the continent of Africa. Of individual edifices not a trace
could be discovered, and the proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded
away from the face of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled
into a dim speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as far as my
vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at length to tumble
headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found myself listening on

tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty
black, and the stars were brilliantly visible.
“The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of them, a
beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of the wicker-
work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking anxiously around him,
fluttering his wings, and making a loud cooing noise, but could not be
persuaded to trust himself from off the car. I took him up at last, and threw
him to about half a dozen yards from the balloon. He made, however, no
attempt to descend as I had expected, but struggled with great vehemence to
get back, uttering at the same time very shrill and piercing cries. He at
length succeeded in regaining his former station on the rim, but had hardly
done so when his head dropped upon his breast, and he fell dead within the
car. The other one did not prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following
the example of his companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him
downward with all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his
descent, with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and in a
perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of sight, and I
have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who seemed in a great
measure recovered from her illness, now made a hearty meal of the dead
bird and then went to sleep with much apparent satisfaction. Her kittens
were quite lively, and so far evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness
whatever.
“At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without the
most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car the
apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus will require some little
explanation, and your Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my
object, in the first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a
barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was existing,
with the intention of introducing within this barricade, by means of my
condenser, a quantity of this same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for
the purposes of respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very
strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which
was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is
to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides,
and so on, along the outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where
the net-work is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed

a complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now necessary to
fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material over the hoop of the net-
work—in other words, between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-
work were separated from the hoop to admit this passage, what was to
sustain the car in the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently
fastened to the hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving the car
suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a portion of the cloth
forming the upper part of the bag, I refastened the loops—not to the hoop,
for that would have been impossible, since the cloth now intervened—but
to a series of large buttons, affixed to the cloth itself, about three feet below
the mouth of the bag, the intervals between the buttons having been made to
correspond to the intervals between the loops. This done, a few more of the
loops were unfastened from the rim, a farther portion of the cloth
introduced, and the disengaged loops then connected with their proper
buttons. In this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the bag
between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the hoop would now
drop down within the car, while the whole weight of the car itself, with all
its contents, would be held up merely by the strength of the buttons. This, at
first sight, would seem an inadequate dependence; but it was by no means
so, for the buttons were not only very strong in themselves, but so close
together that a very slight portion of the whole weight was supported by any
one of them. Indeed, had the car and contents been three times heavier than
they were, I should not have been at all uneasy. I now raised up the hoop
again within the covering of gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former
height by means of three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was
done, of course, to keep the bag distended at the top, and to preserve the
lower part of the net-work in its proper situation. All that now remained was
to fasten up the mouth of the enclosure; and this was readily accomplished
by gathering the folds of the material together, and twisting them up very
tightly on the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.
“In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had been
inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass, through which I could
see without difficulty around me in every horizontal direction. In that
portion of the cloth forming the bottom, was likewise, a fourth window, of
the same kind, and corresponding with a small aperture in the floor of the
car itself. This enabled me to see perpendicularly down, but having found it

impossible to place any similar contrivance overhead, on account of the
peculiar manner of closing up the opening there, and the consequent
wrinkles in the cloth, I could expect to see no objects situated directly in my
zenith. This, of course, was a matter of little consequence; for had I even
been able to place a window at top, the balloon itself would have prevented
my making any use of it.
“About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular opening,
eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim adapted in its inner edge
to the windings of a screw. In this rim was screwed the large tube of the
condenser, the body of the machine being, of course, within the chamber of
gum-elastic. Through this tube a quantity of the rare atmosphere
circumjacent being drawn by means of a vacuum created in the body of the
machine, was thence discharged, in a state of condensation, to mingle with
the thin air already in the chamber. This operation being repeated several
times, at length filled the chamber with atmosphere proper for all the
purposes of respiration. But in so confined a space it would, in a short time,
necessarily become foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact with the
lungs. It was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the car—the
dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere below. To avoid the
inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any moment within the
chamber, this purification was never accomplished all at once, but in a
gradual manner—the valve being opened only for a few seconds, then
closed again, until one or two strokes from the pump of the condenser had
supplied the place of the atmosphere ejected. For the sake of experiment I
had put the cat and kittens in a small basket, and suspended it outside the
car to a button at the bottom, close by the valve, through which I could feed
them at any moment when necessary. I did this at some little risk, and
before closing the mouth of the chamber, by reaching under the car with
one of the poles before mentioned to which a hook had been attached.
“By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine o’clock. During
the whole period of my being thus employed, I endured the most terrible
distress from difficulty of respiration, and bitterly did I repent the
negligence or rather fool-hardiness, of which I had been guilty, of putting
off to the last moment a matter of so much importance. But having at length
accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my invention. Once
again I breathed with perfect freedom and ease—and indeed why should I

not? I was also agreeably surprised to find myself, in a great measure,
relieved from the violent pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight
headache, accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention about the
wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had now to
complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of the uneasiness
attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had actually worn off, as I
had expected, and that much of the pain endured for the last two hours
should have been attributed altogether to the effects of a deficient
respiration.
“At twenty minutes before nine o’clock—that is to say, a short time prior
to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury attained its limit,
or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I mentioned before, was one of an
extended construction. It then indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000
feet, or five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an
extent of the earth’s area amounting to no less than the three hundred-and-
twentieth part of its entire superficies. At nine o’clock I had again lost sight
of land to the eastward, but not before I became aware that the balloon was
drifting rapidly to the N. N. W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was
very evident indeed, although my view was often interrupted by the masses
of cloud which floated to and fro. I observed now that even the lightest
vapors never rose to more than ten miles above the level of the sea.
“At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected; but
dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en masse, and with the greatest
velocity—being out of sight in a very few seconds. I did not at first know
what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon; not being able to believe
that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so prodigious an
acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the atmosphere was now far
too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they actually fell, as they appeared
to do, with great rapidity; and that I had been surprised by the united
velocities of their descent and my own elevation.
“By ten o’clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to be going
upward with a speed increasing momently although I had no longer any
means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I suffered no pain or
uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had at any period

since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in examining the
state of my various apparatus, and now in regenerating the atmosphere
within the chamber. This latter point I determined to attend to at regular
intervals of forty minutes, more on account of the preservation of my
health, than from so frequent a renovation being absolutely necessary. In the
meanwhile I could not help making anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild
and dreamy regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once
unshackled, roamed at will among the ever-changing wonders of a shadowy
and unstable land. Now there were hoary and time-honored forests, and
craggy precipices, and waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses
without a bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where
no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of poppies, and
slender, lily-looking flowers spread themselves out a weary distance, all
silent and motionless forever. Then again I journeyed far down away into
another country where it was all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary
line of clouds. And out of this melancholy water arose a forest of tall
eastern trees, like a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the
shadows of the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface
where they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with
the waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows were
continually coming out, and taking the place of their brothers thus
entombed. “This then,” I said thoughtfully, “is the very reason why the
waters of this lake grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as the
hours run on.” But fancies such as these were not the sole possessors of my
brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would too
frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the innermost
depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their possibility. Yet I would
not suffer my thoughts for any length of time to dwell upon these latter
speculations, rightly judging the real and palpable dangers of the voyage
sufficient for my undivided attention.
“At five o’clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the atmosphere
within the chamber, I took that opportunity of observing the cat and kittens
through the valve. The cat herself appeared to suffer again very much, and I
had no hesitation in attributing her uneasiness chiefly to a difficulty in
breathing; but my experiment with the kittens had resulted very strangely. I
had expected, of course, to see them betray a sense of pain, although in a
less degree than their mother, and this would have been sufficient to

confirm my opinion concerning the habitual endurance of atmospheric
pressure. But I was not prepared to find them, upon close examination,
evidently enjoying a high degree of health, breathing with the greatest ease
and perfect regularity, and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness
whatever. I could only account for all this by extending my theory, and
supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might perhaps not be,
as I had taken for granted, chemically insufficient for the purposes of life,
and that a person born in such a medium might, possibly, be unaware of any
inconvenience attending its inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser
strata near the earth, he might endure tortures of a similar nature to those I
had so lately experienced. It has since been to me a matter of deep regret
that an awkward accident, at this time, occasioned me the loss of my little
family of cats, and deprived me of the insight into this matter which a
continued experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through the
valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves of my shirt became
entangled in the loop which sustained the basket, and thus, in a moment,
loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole actually vanished into air, it
could not have shot from my sight in a more abrupt and instantaneous
manner. Positively, there could not have intervened the tenth part of a
second between the disengagement of the basket and its absolute and total
disappearance with all that it contained. My good wishes followed it to the
earth, but of course, I had no hope that either cat or kittens would ever live
to tell the tale of their misfortune.
“At six o’clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth’s visible area to
the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to advance with
great rapidity, until, at five minutes before seven, the whole surface in view
was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after
this time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the balloon; and
this circumstance, although of course fully anticipated, did not fail to give
me an infinite deal of pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should
behold the rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of
Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward, and
thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, would I enjoy the
light of the sun for a longer and a longer period. I now determined to keep a
journal of my passage, reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours
continuously, without taking into consideration the intervals of darkness.

“At ten o’clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest of
the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as it may
appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which I am now
speaking. If I went to sleep as I proposed, how could the atmosphere in the
chamber be regenerated in the interim? To breathe it for more than an hour,
at the farthest, would be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this term could
be extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might
ensue. The consideration of this dilemma gave me no little disquietude; and
it will hardly be believed, that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should
look upon this business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of
accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only momentary. I reflected
that man is the veriest slave of custom, and that many points in the routine
of his existence are deemed essentially important, which are only so at all
by his having rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from
being awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my
repose. It would require but five minutes at most to regenerate the
atmosphere in the fullest manner, and the only real difficulty was to
contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper moment for so doing.
But this was a question which, I am willing to confess, occasioned me no
little trouble in its solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to
prevent his falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a ball of copper,
the din of whose descent into a basin of the same metal on the floor beside
his chair, served effectually to startle him up, if, at any moment, he should
be overcome with drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different
indeed, and left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish to keep
awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of time. I at
length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple as it may seem, was
hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as an invention fully equal to that
of the telescope, the steam-engine, or the art of printing itself.
“It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now attained,
continued its course upward with an even and undeviating ascent, and the
car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect that it would have
been impossible to detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This
circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined to adopt.
My supply of water had been put on board in kegs containing five gallons

each, and ranged very securely around the interior of the car. I unfastened
one of these, and taking two ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the
wicker-work from one side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and
parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the keg, and
steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches immediately below
these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of the car I fastened another shelf
—but made of thin plank, being the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon
this latter shelf, and exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small
earthern pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg
over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a tapering or
conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out, as might happen, until,
after a few experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of tightness, at which
the water, oozing from the hole, and falling into the pitcher below, would
fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of course, was
a matter briefly and easily ascertained, by noticing the proportion of the
pitcher filled in any given time. Having arranged all this, the rest of the plan
is obvious. My bed was so contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring
my head, in lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was
evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full, would be
forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth, which was somewhat
lower than the rim. It was also evident, that the water thus falling from a
height of more than four feet, could not do otherwise than fall upon my
face, and that the sure consequences would be, to waken me up
instantaneously, even from the soundest slumber in the world.
“It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
I immediately betook myself to bed, with full confidence in the efficiency
of my invention. Nor in this matter was I disappointed. Punctually every
sixty minutes was I aroused by my trusty chronometer, when, having
emptied the pitcher into the bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties
of the condenser, I retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my
slumber caused me even less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I
finally arose for the day, it was seven o’clock, and the sun had attained
many degrees above the line of my horizon.
“April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the
earth’s apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me in the
ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands. Far
away to the northward I perceived a thin, white, and exceedingly brilliant

line, or streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in
supposing it to be the southern disk of the ices of the Polar Sea. My
curiosity was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther to
the north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself placed directly
above the Pole itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this
case, prevent my taking as accurate a survey as I could wish. Much,
however, might be ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature
occurred during the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the
balloon still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The cold was
intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When darkness
came over the earth, I betook myself to bed, although it was for many hours
afterward broad daylight all around my immediate situation. The water-
clock was punctual in its duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with
the exception of the periodical interruption.
“April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It had
lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto worn, being
now of a grayish-white, and of a lustre dazzling to the eye. The islands were
no longer visible; whether they had passed down the horizon to the
southeast, or whether my increasing elevation had left them out of sight, it
is impossible to say. I was inclined, however, to the latter opinion. The rim
of ice to the northward was growing more and more apparent. Cold by no
means so intense. Nothing of importance occurred, and I passed the day in
reading, having taken care to supply myself with books.
“April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising while
nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved in
darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I again saw
the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct, and appeared of a
much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was evidently approaching
it, and with great rapidity. Fancied I could again distinguish a strip of land
to the eastward, and one also to the westward, but could not be certain.
Weather moderate. Nothing of any consequence happened during the day.
Went early to bed.
“April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off to
the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its present

course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had now little
doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the day I continued
to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and
materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth’s form being that of an
oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened regions in the vicinity
of the Arctic circle. When darkness at length overtook me, I went to bed in
great anxiety, fearing to pass over the object of so much curiosity when I
should have no opportunity of observing it.
“April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what there
could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It was there,
beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but, alas! I had now
ascended to so vast a distance, that nothing could with accuracy be
discerned. Indeed, to judge from the progression of the numbers indicating
my various altitudes, respectively, at different periods, between six A.M. on
the second of April, and twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same day
(at which time the barometer ran down), it might be fairly inferred that the
balloon had now, at four o’clock in the morning of April the seventh,
reached a height of not less, certainly, than 7,254 miles above the surface of
the sea. This elevation may appear immense, but the estimate upon which it
is calculated gave a result in all probability far inferior to the truth. At all
events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth’s major diameter; the
entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart orthographically
projected: and the great circle of the equator itself formed the boundary line
of my horizon. Your Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the
confined regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic circle,
although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen without any
appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in themselves, comparatively
too diminutive, and at too great a distance from the point of sight, to admit
of any very accurate examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of
a nature singular and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before
mentioned, and which, with slight qualification, may be called the limit of
human discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken, sheet
of ice continues to extend. In the first few degrees of this its progress, its
surface is very sensibly flattened, farther on depressed into a plane, and
finally, becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at the Pole itself, in a
circular centre, sharply defined, whose apparent diameter subtended at the
balloon an angle of about sixty-five seconds, and whose dusky hue, varying

in intensity, was, at all times, darker than any other spot upon the visible
hemisphere, and occasionally deepened into the most absolute and
impenetrable blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By
twelve o’clock the circular centre had materially decreased in
circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the balloon
passing over the western limb of the ice, and floating away rapidly in the
direction of the equator.
“April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth’s apparent diameter,
besides a material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole
visible area partook in different degrees of a tint of pale yellow, and in some
portions had acquired a brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view
downward was also considerably impeded by the dense atmosphere in the
vicinity of the surface being loaded with clouds, between whose masses I
could only now and then obtain a glimpse of the earth itself. This difficulty
of direct vision had troubled me more or less for the last forty-eight hours;
but my present enormous elevation brought closer together, as it were, the
floating bodies of vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course, more
and more palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I could easily
perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range of great lakes in the
continent of North America, and was holding a course, due south, which
would bring me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the
most heartful satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled me with
uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it much longer, there
would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all, whose
orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle of 5° 8′ 48″.
“April 9th. To-day the earth’s diameter was greatly diminished, and the
color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived, at nine P.M., over
the northern edge of the Mexican Gulf.
“April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five o’clock
this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound, for which I could in
no manner account. It was of very brief duration, but, while it lasted
resembled nothing in the world of which I had any previous experience. It
is needless to say that I became excessively alarmed, having, in the first
instance, attributed the noise to the bursting of the balloon. I examined all

my apparatus, however, with great attention, and could discover nothing out
of order. Spent a great part of the day in meditating upon an occurrence so
extraordinary, but could find no means whatever of accounting for it. Went
to bed dissatisfied, and in a state of great anxiety and agitation.
“April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent diameter of the
earth, and a considerable increase, now observable for the first time, in that
of the moon itself, which wanted only a few days of being full. It now
required long and excessive labor to condense within the chamber sufficient
atmospheric air for the sustenance of life.
“April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction of
the balloon, and although fully anticipated, afforded me the most
unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly, at an acute
angle, to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day, keeping
nearly, if not altogether, in the exact plane of the lunar ellipse. What was
worthy of remark, a very perceptible vacillation in the car was a
consequence of this change of route—a vacillation which prevailed, in a
more or less degree, for a period of many hours.
“April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the loud,
crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought long upon the
subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory conclusion. Great decrease
in the earth’s apparent diameter, which now subtended from the balloon an
angle of very little more than twenty-five degrees. The moon could not be
seen at all, being nearly in my zenith. I still continued in the plane of the
ellipse, but made little progress to the eastward.
“April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the earth. To-
day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the balloon was now
actually running up the line of apsides to the point of perigee—in other
words, holding the direct course which would bring it immediately to the
moon in that part of its orbit the nearest to the earth. The moon itself was
directly overhead, and consequently hidden from my view. Great and long-
continued labor necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.
“April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could now be
traced upon the earth with anything approaching distinctness. About twelve
o’clock I became aware, for the third time, of that appalling sound which
had so astonished me before. It now, however, continued for some

moments, and gathered intensity as it continued. At length, while, stupefied
and terror-stricken, I stood in expectation of I knew not what hideous
destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence, and a gigantic and
flaming mass of some material which I could not distinguish, came with a
voice of a thousand thunders, roaring and booming by the balloon. When
my fears and astonishment had in some degree subsided, I had little
difficulty in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic fragment ejected from
that world to which I was so rapidly approaching, and, in all probability,
one of that singular class of substances occasionally picked up on the earth,
and termed meteoric stones for want of a better appellation.
“April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very small
portion of the moon’s disk protruding, as it were, on all sides beyond the
huge circumference of the balloon. My agitation was extreme; for I had
now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed,
the labor now required by the condenser had increased to a most oppressive
degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a
matter nearly out of the question. I became quite ill, and my frame trembled
with exhaustion. It was impossible that human nature could endure this
state of intense suffering much longer. During the now brief interval of
darkness a meteoric stone again passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of
these phenomena began to occasion me much apprehension.
“April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular breadth
of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this had greatly diminished; on
the fifteenth a still more remarkable decrease was observable; and, on
retiring on the night of the sixteenth, I had noticed an angle of no more than
about seven degrees and fifteen minutes. What, therefore, must have been
my amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber, on the
morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface beneath me so
suddenly and wonderfully augmented in volume, as to subtend no less than
thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular diameter! I was thunderstruck! No
words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
astonishment, with which I was seized possessed, and altogether
overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me—my teeth chattered—my hair
started up on end. ‘The balloon, then, had actually burst!’ These were the
first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: ‘The balloon had

positively burst!—I was falling—falling with the most impetuous, the most
unparalleled velocity! To judge by the immense distance already so quickly
passed over, it could not be more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before I
should meet the surface of the earth, and be hurled into annihilation!’ But at
length reflection came to my relief. I paused; I considered; and I began to
doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not in any reason have so rapidly
come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching the surface
below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with the velocity
I had at first so horribly conceived. This consideration served to calm the
perturbation of my mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the
phenomenon in its proper point of view. In fact, amazement must have
fairly deprived me of my senses, when I could not see the vast difference, in
appearance, between the surface below me, and the surface of my mother
earth. The latter was indeed over my head, and completely hidden by the
balloon, while the moon—the moon itself in all its glory—lay beneath me,
and at my feet.
“The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this extraordinary
change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after all, that part of the
adventure least susceptible of explanation. For the bouleversement in itself
was not only natural and inevitable, but had been long actually anticipated
as a circumstance to be expected whenever I should arrive at that exact
point of my voyage where the attraction of the planet should be superseded
by the attraction of the satellite—or, more precisely, where the gravitation
of the balloon toward the earth should be less powerful than its gravitation
toward the moon. To be sure I arose from a sound slumber, with all my
senses in confusion, to the contemplation of a very startling phenomenon,
and one which, although expected, was not expected at the moment. The
revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an easy and gradual
manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I even been awake at the time
of the occurrence, I should have been made aware of it by any internal
evidence of an inversion—that is to say, by any inconvenience or
disarrangement, either about my person or about my apparatus.
“It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of my
situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed every faculty of
my soul, my attention was, in the first place, wholly directed to the
contemplation of the general physical appearance of the moon. It lay
beneath me like a chart—and although I judged it to be still at no

inconsiderable distance, the indentures of its surface were defined to my
vision with a most striking and altogether unaccountable distinctness. The
entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of
water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as the most extraordinary
feature in its geological condition. Yet, strange to say, I beheld vast level
regions of a character decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion
of the hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic
mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of artificial
than of natural protuberance. The highest among them does not exceed
three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular elevation; but a map of the
volcanic districts of the Campi Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies
a better idea of their general surface than any unworthy description I might
think proper to attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of evident
eruption, and gave me fearfully to understand their fury and their power, by
the repeated thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones, which now rushed
upward by the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.
“April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon’s apparent
bulk—and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent began to fill me
with alarm. It will be remembered, that, in the earliest stage of my
speculations upon the possibility of a passage to the moon, the existence, in
its vicinity, of an atmosphere, dense in proportion to the bulk of the planet,
had entered largely into my calculations; this too in spite of many theories
to the contrary, and, it may be added, in spite of a general disbelief in the
existence of any lunar atmosphere at all. But, in addition to what I have
already urged in regard to Encke’s comet and the zodiacal light, I had been
strengthened in my opinion by certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of
Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a half old, in the
evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was visible, and continued to
watch it until it became visible. The two cusps appeared tapering in a very
sharp faint prolongation, each exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly
illuminated by the solar rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was
visible. Soon afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This
prolongation of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must have arisen
from the refraction of the sun’s rays by the moon’s atmosphere. I computed,
also, the height of the atmosphere (which could refract light enough into its
dark hemisphere to produce a twilight more luminous than the light
reflected from the earth when the moon is about 32° from the new) to be

1,356 Paris feet; in this view, I supposed the greatest height capable of
refracting the solar ray, to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this topic had also
received confirmation by a passage in the eighty-second volume of the
Philosophical Transactions, in which it is stated that at an occultation of
Jupiter’s satellites, the third disappeared after having been about 1″ or 2″ of
time indistinct, and the fourth became indiscernible near the limb.(*4)
“Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an
atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of course,
entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent. Should I then, after
all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in consequence nothing better to
expect, as a finale to my adventure, than being dashed into atoms against
the rugged surface of the satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to
be terrified. My distance from the moon was comparatively trifling, while
the labor required by the condenser was diminished not at all, and I could
discover no indication whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.
“April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o’clock, the
surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my apprehensions excited to
the utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of an
alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its density
considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was necessary at the
apparatus; and at twelve o’clock, with some hesitation, I ventured to
unscrew the tourniquet, when, finding no inconvenience from having done
so, I finally threw open the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it from
around the car. As might have been expected, spasms and violent headache
were the immediate consequences of an experiment so precipitate and full
of danger. But these and other difficulties attending respiration, as they
were by no means so great as to put me in peril of my life, I determined to
endure as I best could, in consideration of my leaving them behind me
momently in my approach to the denser strata near the moon. This
approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and it soon became
alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not been deceived in the
expectation of an atmosphere dense in proportion to the mass of the
satellite, still I had been wrong in supposing this density, even at the
surface, at all adequate to the support of the great weight contained in the
car of my balloon. Yet this should have been the case, and in an equal
degree as at the surface of the earth, the actual gravity of bodies at either
planet supposed in the ratio of the atmospheric condensation. That it was

not the case, however, my precipitous downfall gave testimony enough;
why it was not so, can only be explained by a reference to those possible
geological disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all events I
was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most terrible
impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing overboard first
my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and gum-
elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car. But it was all to no
purpose. I still fell with horrible rapidity, and was now not more than half a
mile from the surface. As a last resource, therefore, having got rid of my
coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from the balloon the car itself, which was of
no inconsiderable weight, and thus, clinging with both hands to the net-
work, I had barely time to observe that the whole country, as far as the eye
could reach, was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I
tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking city, and into
the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people, who none of them uttered a
single syllable, or gave themselves the least trouble to render me assistance,
but stood, like a parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing
me and my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from them
in contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left, and left perhaps
for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper shield, about two degrees in
diameter, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead, and tipped on one of
its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land
or water could be discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable
spots, and belted with tropical and equatorial zones.
“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great anxieties,
unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had, at length, on the
nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam, arrived in safety at the
conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the most extraordinary, and the most
momentous, ever accomplished, undertaken, or conceived by any denizen
of earth. But my adventures yet remain to be related. And indeed your
Excellencies may well imagine that, after a residence of five years upon a
planet not only deeply interesting in its own peculiar character, but rendered
doubly so by its intimate connection, in capacity of satellite, with the world
inhabited by man, I may have intelligence for the private ear of the States’
College of Astronomers of far more importance than the details, however
wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded. This is, in fact,
the case. I have much—very much which it would give me the greatest

pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of the climate of the planet; of
its wonderful alternations of heat and cold, of unmitigated and burning
sunshine for one fortnight, and more than polar frigidity for the next; of a
constant transfer of moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from the
point beneath the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a variable zone of
running water; of the people themselves; of their manners, customs, and
political institutions; of their peculiar physical construction; of their
ugliness; of their want of ears, those useless appendages in an atmosphere
so peculiarly modified; of their consequent ignorance of the use and
properties of speech; of their substitute for speech in a singular method of
inter-communication; of the incomprehensible connection between each
particular individual in the moon with some particular individual on the
earth—a connection analogous with, and depending upon, that of the orbs
of the planet and the satellites, and by means of which the lives and
destinies of the inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and
destinies of the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it so please your
Excellencies—above all, of those dark and hideous mysteries which lie in
the outer regions of the moon—regions which, owing to the almost
miraculous accordance of the satellite’s rotation on its own axis with its
sidereal revolution about the earth, have never yet been turned, and, by
God’s mercy, never shall be turned, to the scrutiny of the telescopes of man.
All this, and more—much more—would I most willingly detail. But, to be
brief, I must have my reward. I am pining for a return to my family and to
my home; and as the price of any farther communication on my part—in
consideration of the light which I have it in my power to throw upon many
very important branches of physical and metaphysical science—I must
solicit, through the influence of your honorable body, a pardon for the crime
of which I have been guilty in the death of the creditors upon my departure
from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the present paper. Its bearer, an
inhabitant of the moon, whom I have prevailed upon, and properly
instructed, to be my messenger to the earth, will await your Excellencies’
pleasure, and return to me with the pardon in question, if it can, in any
manner, be obtained.
“I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies’ very humble servant,

“HANS PFAALL.”

Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,
Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground in the
extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk having
taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and deposited them in his pocket, so
far forgot both himself and his dignity, as to turn round three times upon his
heel in the quintessence of astonishment and admiration. There was no
doubt about the matter—the pardon should be obtained. So at least swore,
with a round oath, Professor Rub-a-dub, and so finally thought the
illustrious Von Underduk, as he took the arm of his brother in science, and
without saying a word, began to make the best of his way home to
deliberate upon the measures to be adopted. Having reached the door,
however, of the burgomaster’s dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest
that as the messenger had thought proper to disappear—no doubt frightened
to death by the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam—the
pardon would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would
undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this observation the
burgomaster assented, and the matter was therefore at an end. Not so,
however, rumors and speculations. The letter, having been published, gave
rise to a variety of gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made
themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better
than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a general term
for all matters above their comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive
upon what data they have founded such an accusation. Let us see what they
say:
Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial
antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.
Don’t understand at all.
Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of whose
ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his head, has been
missing for several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.
Well—what of that?
Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little balloon
were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have been made in the
moon. They were dirty papers—very dirty—and Gluck, the printer, would
take his Bible oath to their having been printed in Rotterdam.
He was mistaken—undoubtedly—mistaken.

Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the drunken villain, and the three
very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer than two
or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs, having just returned,
with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond the sea.
Don’t believe it—don’t believe a word of it.
Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought to be
generally received, that the College of Astronomers in the city of
Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other parts of the world,—not to
mention colleges and astronomers in general,—are, to say the least of the
matter, not a whit better, nor greater, nor wiser than they ought to be.
~~~ End of Text ~~~

Notes to Hans Pfaal
(*1) NOTE—Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity between the
above sketchy trifle and the celebrated “Moon-Story” of Mr. Locke; but as
both have the character of hoaxes (although the one is in a tone of banter,
the other of downright earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the same subject,
the moon—moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility by scientific
detail—the author of “Hans Pfaall” thinks it necessary to say, in self-
defence, that his own jeu d’esprit was published in the “Southern Literary
Messenger” about three weeks before the commencement of Mr. L’s in the
“New York Sun.” Fancying a likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some
of the New York papers copied “Hans Pfaall,” and collated it with the
“Moon-Hoax,” by way of detecting the writer of the one in the writer of the
other.
As many more persons were actually gulled by the “Moon-Hoax” than
would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some little
amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to point out
those particulars of the story which should have been sufficient to establish
its real character. Indeed, however rich the imagination displayed in this
ingenious fiction, it wanted much of the force which might have been given
it by a more scrupulous attention to facts and to general analogy. That the
public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross ignorance
which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an astronomical nature.

The moon’s distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000 miles.
If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens would bring the
satellite (or any distant object), we, of course, have but to divide the
distance by the magnifying or, more strictly, by the space-penetrating power
of the glass. Mr. L. makes his lens have a power of 42,000 times. By this
divide 240,000 (the moon’s real distance), and we have five miles and five
sevenths, as the apparent distance. No animal at all could be seen so far;
much less the minute points particularized in the story. Mr. L. speaks about
Sir John Herschel’s perceiving flowers (the Papaver rheas, etc.), and even
detecting the color and the shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly before,
too, he has himself observed that the lens would not render perceptible
objects of less than eighteen inches in diameter; but even this, as I have
said, is giving the glass by far too great power. It may be observed, in
passing, that this prodigious glass is said to have been molded at the
glasshouse of Messrs. Hartley and Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and
G.‘s establishment had ceased operations for many years previous to the
publication of the hoax.
On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of “a hairy veil” over the eyes of
a species of bison, the author says: “It immediately occurred to the acute
mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a providential contrivance to protect the
eyes of the animal from the great extremes of light and darkness to which
all the inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected.” But
this cannot be thought a very “acute” observation of the Doctor’s. The
inhabitants of our side of the moon have, evidently, no darkness at all, so
there can be nothing of the “extremes” mentioned. In the absence of the sun
they have a light from the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded
moons.
The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with Blunt’s
Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any other lunar chart, and
even grossly at variance with itself. The points of the compass, too, are in
inextricable confusion; the writer appearing to be ignorant that, on a lunar
map, these are not in accordance with terrestrial points; the east being to the
left, etc.
Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare
Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark spots by former
astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details regarding oceans and other

large bodies of water in the moon; whereas there is no astronomical point
more positively ascertained than that no such bodies exist there. In
examining the boundary between light and darkness (in the crescent or
gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the dark places, the line
of division is found to be rough and jagged; but, were these dark places
liquid, it would evidently be even.
The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a literal
copy of Peter Wilkins’ account of the wings of his flying islanders. This
simple fact should have induced suspicion, at least, it might be thought.
On page 23, we have the following: “What a prodigious influence must
our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this satellite when an
embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of chemical affinity!” This
is very fine; but it should be observed that no astronomer would have made
such remark, especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense
intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than the moon. A
similar objection applies to the whole of the concluding pages, where, by
way of introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical
correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this
to the “Edinburgh Journal of Science!”
But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed the
fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of seeing animals upon
the moon’s surface—what would first arrest the attention of an observer
from the earth? Certainly neither their shape, size, nor any other such
peculiarity, so soon as their remarkable situation. They would appear to be
walking, with heels up and head down, in the manner of flies on a ceiling.
The real observer would have uttered an instant ejaculation of surprise
(however prepared by previous knowledge) at the singularity of their
position; the fictitious observer has not even mentioned the subject, but
speaks of seeing the entire bodies of such creatures, when it is demonstrable
that he could have seen only the diameter of their heads!
It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and particularly
the powers of the man-bats (for example, their ability to fly in so rare an
atmosphere—if, indeed, the moon have any), with most of the other fancies
in regard to animal and vegetable existence, are at variance, generally, with
all analogical reasoning on these themes; and that analogy here will often
amount to conclusive demonstration. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to

add, that all the suggestions attributed to Brewster and Herschel, in the
beginning of the article, about “a transfusion of artificial light through the
focal object of vision,” etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing
which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.
There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery among the stars
—a limit whose nature need only be stated to be understood. If, indeed, the
casting of large lenses were all that is required, man’s ingenuity would
ultimately prove equal to the task, and we might have them of any size
demanded. But, unhappily, in proportion to the increase of size in the lens,
and consequently of space-penetrating power, is the diminution of light
from the object, by diffusion of its rays. And for this evil there is no remedy
within human ability; for an object is seen by means of that light alone
which proceeds from itself, whether direct or reflected. Thus the only
“artificial” light which could avail Mr. Locke, would be some artificial light
which he should be able to throw—not upon the “focal object of vision,”
but upon the real object to be viewed—to wit: upon the moon. It has been
easily calculated that, when the light proceeding from a star becomes so
diffused as to be as weak as the natural light proceeding from the whole of
the stars, in a clear and moonless night, then the star is no longer visible for
any practical purpose.
The Earl of Ross’s telescope, lately constructed in England, has a
speculum with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches; the Herschel
telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the Earl of Ross’s is 6 feet
diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at the edges, and 5 at the centre. The
weight is 3 tons. The focal length is 50 feet.
I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book, whose
title-page runs thus: “L’Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage Chimerique fait
au Monde de la Lvne, nouellement decouvert par Dominique Gonzales,
Aduanturier Espagnol, autrem?t dit le Courier volant. Mis en notre langve
par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist.
Et chez J. Goignard, au premier pilier de la grand’salle du Palais, proche les
Consultations, MDCXLVII.” Pp. 76.
The writer professes to have translated his work from the English of one
Mr. D’Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible ambiguity in the
statement. “J’ en ai eu,” says he “l’original de Monsieur D’Avisson,
medecin des mieux versez qui soient aujourd’huy dans la cõnoissance des

Belles Lettres, et sur tout de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette
obligation entre les autres, de m’ auoir non seulement mis en main ce Livre
en anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D’Anan,
gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la version
duquel j’ advoue que j’ ay tiré le plan de la mienne.”
After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas, and
which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that, being ill during a
sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together with a negro servant, on the
island of St. Helena. To increase the chances of obtaining food, the two
separate, and live as far apart as possible. This brings about a training of
birds, to serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by
these are taught to carry parcels of some weight—and this weight is
gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained of uniting the force of
a great number of the birds, with a view to raising the author himself. A
machine is contrived for the purpose, and we have a minute description of
it, which is materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the
Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated astride
something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and borne aloft by a
multitude of wild swans (ganzas) who had strings reaching from their tails
to the machine.
The main event detailed in the Signor’s narrative depends upon a very
important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance until near the end of
the book. The ganzas, with whom he had become so familiar, were not
really denizens of St. Helena, but of the moon. Thence it had been their
custom, time out of mind, to migrate annually to some portion of the earth.
In proper season, of course, they would return home; and the author,
happening, one day, to require their services for a short voyage, is
unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period arrives at the
satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things, that the people enjoy
extreme happiness; that they have no law; that they die without pain; that
they are from ten to thirty feet in height; that they live five thousand years;
that they have an emperor called Irdonozur; and that they can jump sixty
feet high, when, being out of the gravitating influence, they fly about with
fans.
I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general philosophy of the
volume.

“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of the
globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it the larger
they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the stars, since there was
no night where I was, they always had the same appearance; not brilliant,
as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the moon of a morning. But few of
them were visible, and these ten times larger (as well as I could judge) than
they seem to the inhabitants of the earth. The moon, which wanted two days
of being full, was of a terrible bigness.
“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of the
globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it the larger
they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was calm weather or
stormy, I found myself always immediately between the moon and the
earth. I was convinced of this for two reasons-because my birds always
flew in a straight line; and because whenever we attempted to rest, we were
carried insensibly around the globe of the earth. For I admit the opinion of
Copernicus, who maintains that it never ceases to revolve from the east to
the west, not upon the poles of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles
of the world, but upon those of the Zodiac, a question of which I propose to
speak more at length here-after, when I shall have leisure to refresh my
memory in regard to the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when
young, and have since forgotten.”
Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without some
claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the current astronomical
notions of the time. One of these assumed, that the “gravitating power”
extended but a short distance from the earth’s surface, and, accordingly, we
find our voyager “carried insensibly around the globe,” etc.
There have been other “voyages to the moon,” but none of higher merit
than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly meaningless. In the
third volume of the “American Quarterly Review” will be found quite an
elaborate criticism upon a certain “journey” of the kind in question—a
criticism in which it is difficult to say whether the critic most exposes the
stupidity of the book, or his own absurd ignorance of astronomy. I forget
the title of the work; but the means of the voyage are more deplorably ill
conceived than are even the ganzas of our friend the Signor Gonzales. The
adventurer, in digging the earth, happens to discover a peculiar metal for
which the moon has a strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a

box, which, when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with him,
forthwith, to the satellite. The “Flight of Thomas O’Rourke,” is a jeu d’
esprit not altogether contemptible, and has been translated into German.
Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose
eccentricities gave rise to the tale. The “flight” is made on an eagle’s back,
from Hungry Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.
In these various brochures the aim is always satirical; the theme being a
description of Lunarian customs as compared with ours. In none is there
any effort at plausibility in the details of the voyage itself. The writers
seem, in each instance, to be utterly uninformed in respect to astronomy. In
“Hans Pfaall” the design is original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at
verisimilitude, in the application of scientific principles (so far as the
whimsical nature of the subject would permit), to the actual passage
between the earth and the moon.
(*2) The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called Trabes.
Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant.—Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.
(*3) Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that Mr. Green,
of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts, deny the assertions of
Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a decreasing inconvenience,—
precisely in accordance with the theory here urged in a mere spirit of banter.
(*4) Hevelius writes that he has several times found, in skies perfectly
clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh magnitude were
conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the moon, at the same elongation
from the earth, and with one and the same excellent telescope, the moon
and its maculae did not appear equally lucid at all times. From the
circumstances of the observation, it is evident that the cause of this
phenomenon is not either in our air, in the tube, in the moon, or in the eye
of the spectator, but must be looked for in something (an atmosphere?)
existing about the moon.
Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars, when
approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular figure changed
into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he found no alteration of figure
at all. Hence it might be supposed, that at some times and not at others,
there is a dense matter encompassing the moon wherein the rays of the stars
are refracted.

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 seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so
much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains
the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable
coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.
In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more
remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he
occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon
ripened into friendship—for there was much in the recluse to excite interest
and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but

infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate
enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely
employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or
sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or
entomological specimens—his collection of the latter might have been
envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually
accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted
before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by
threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of
attendance upon the footsteps of his young “Massa Will.” It is not
improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat
unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with
a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.
The winters in the latitude of Sullivan’s Island are seldom very severe,
and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered
necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a
day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way
through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for
several weeks—my residence being, at that time, in Charleston, a distance
of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and re-passage
were very far behind those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I
rapped, as was my custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I
knew it was secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing
upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I
threw off an overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited
patiently the arrival of my hosts.
Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome.
Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some marsh-hens
for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else shall I term them?—of
enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and,
more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter’s assistance, a
scarabæus which he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he
wished to have my opinion on the morrow.
“And why not to-night?” I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and
wishing the whole tribe of scarabæi at the devil.

“Ah, if I had only known you were here!” said Legrand, “but it’s so long
since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay me a visit this
very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G——,
from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible
for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup
down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!”
“What?—sunrise?”
“Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the size of
a large hickory-nut—with two jet black spots near one extremity of the
back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other. The antennæ are—”
“Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you,” here
interrupted Jupiter; “de bug is a goole bug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside
and all, sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby a bug in my life.”
“Well, suppose it is, Jup,” replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it
seemed to me, than the case demanded, “is that any reason for your letting
the birds burn? The 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 tomorrow. 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 drew from his
waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty foolscap, and made
upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat
by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed
it to me without rising. As I received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded
by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland,
belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me
with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits.
When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth,
found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.
“Well!” I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, “this is a strange
scarabæus, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything like it before—
unless it was a skull, or a death’s-head—which it more nearly resembles
than anything else that has come under my observation.”

“A death’s-head!” echoed Legrand. “Oh—yes—well, it has something of
that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black spots look like
eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a mouth—and then the shape
of the whole is oval.”
“Perhaps so,” said I; “but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I must wait
until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of its personal
appearance.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said he, a little nettled, “I draw tolerably—should
do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite
a blockhead.”
“But, my dear fellow, you are joking then,” said I, “this is a very passable
skull—indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent skull, according to the
vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabæus
must be the queerest scarabæus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may
get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you will
call the bug scarabæus caput hominis, or something of that kind—there are
many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where are the antennæ you
spoke of?”
“The antennæ!” said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably
warm upon the subject; “I am sure you must see the antennæ. I made them
as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I presume that is sufficient.”
“Well, well,” I said, “perhaps you have—still I don’t see them;” and I
handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his
temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor
puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no
antennæ visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the
ordinary cuts of a death’s-head.
He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it,
apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed
suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in
another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to 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 examination of the
paper; turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct
greatly astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the

growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from
his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both
in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his
demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he
seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore away he
became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which no sallies of mine
could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I
had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it
proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he
shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality.
It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had seen nothing
of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I
had never seen the good old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some
serious disaster had befallen my friend.
“Well, Jup,” said I, “what is the matter now?—how is your master?”
“Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought be.”
“Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?”
“Dar! dat’s it!—him neber ’plain of notin’—but him berry sick for all
dat.”
“Very sick, Jupiter!—why didn’t you say so at once? Is he confined to
bed?”
“No, dat he aint!—he aint ’fin’d nowhar—dat’s just whar de shoe pinch
—my mind is got to be berry hebby ’bout poor Massa Will.”
“Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking about. You
say your master is sick. Hasn’t he told you what ails him?”
“Why, massa, ’taint worf while for to git mad about de matter—Massa
Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him—but den what make him go
about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as
white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de time—”
“Keeps a what, Jupiter?”
“Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate—de queerest figgurs I ebber
did see. Ise gittin’ to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye
’pon him ’noovers. Todder day he gib me slip ’fore de sun up and was gone
de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him

deuced good beating when he did come—but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn’t de
heart arter all—he look so berry poorly.”
“Eh?—what?—ah yes!—upon the whole I think you had better not be too
severe with the poor fellow—don’t flog him, Jupiter—he can’t very well
stand it—but can you form no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or
rather this change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant happened since I
saw you?”
“No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant since den—‘twas ’fore den
I’m feared—‘twas de berry day you was dare.”
“How? what do you mean?”
“Why, massa, I mean de bug—dare now.”
“The what?”
“De bug,—I’m berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere ’bout de
head by dat goole-bug.”
“And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?”
“Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sick a deuced bug
—he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him
fuss, but had for to let him go ’gin mighty quick, I tell you—den was de
time he must ha’ got de bite. I did n’t like de look oh de bug mouff, myself,
no how, so I 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 circumstance 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 attentions. Would you
believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to
chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the
hills on the 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.
“If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. Do
come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of importance. I assure you
that it is of the highest importance.

“Ever yours,
“WILLIAM LEGRAND”.

There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great
uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand. What
could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable brain?
What “business of the highest importance” could he possibly have to
transact? Jupiter’s account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the
continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason
of my friend. Without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared to
accompany the negro.
Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all
apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were to
embark.
“What is the meaning of all this, Jup?” I inquired.
“Him syfe, massa, and spade.”

“Very true; but what are they doing here?”
“Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for him
in de town, and de debbil’s own lot of money I had to gib for ’em.”
“But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your ‘Massa Will’
going to do with scythes and spades?”
“Dat’s more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don’t b’lieve ’tis more
dan he know, too. But it’s all cum ob do bug.”
Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose whole
intellect seemed to be absorbed by “de bug,” I now stepped into the boat
and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove
to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us
to the hut. It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had
been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous
empressement which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions already
entertained. His countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set
eyes glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries respecting his health,
I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the
scarabæus 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 scarabæus. Do you
know that Jupiter is quite right about it?”
“In what way?” I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.
“In supposing it to be a bug of real gold.” He said this with an air of
profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.
“This bug is to make my fortune,” he continued, with a triumphant smile,
“to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any wonder, then, that I
prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to
use it properly and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter;
bring me that scarabæus!”
“What! de bug, massa? I’d rudder not go fer trubble dat bug—you mus’
git him for your own self.” Hereupon Legrand arose, with a grave and
stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was
enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabæus, and, at that time, unknown to
naturalists—of course a great prize in a scientific point of view. There were
two round, black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near

the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the
appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very
remarkable, and, taking all things into consideration, I could hardly blame
Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand’s
concordance with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell.
“I sent for you,” said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had completed
my examination of the beetle, “I sent for you, that I might have your
counsel and assistance in furthering the views of Fate and of the bug—”
“My dear Legrand,” I cried, interrupting him, “you are certainly unwell,
and had better use some little precautions. You shall go to bed, and I will
remain with you a few days, until you get over this. You are feverish and—”
“Feel my pulse,” said he.
I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest indication of fever.
“But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to
prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next—”
“You are mistaken,” he interposed, “I am as well as I can expect to be
under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me well, you will
relieve this excitement.”
“And how is this to be done?”
“Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition into the
hills, upon the 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 allayed.”
“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 proceeding.”
“I am sorry—very sorry—for we shall have to try it by ourselves.”
“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 advice 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. Jupiter 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
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 scarabæus, 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 refrain 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 endeavored, 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, and 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 footstep was to be seen. Legrand led
the way with decision; pausing 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
setting when we entered a region infinitely more dreary than any yet seen. It
was a species of table land, near the summit 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 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 examined it with minute attention. When he had completed his scrutiny,
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, drawing 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 Tulipferum, 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 difficulty of ascension, in the present case, lay more in
semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as closely as
possible, with his arms and knees, seizing with his hands some projections,
and resting his naked toes upon others, Jupiter, after one 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 Legrand. The
negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with but little trouble;
ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse of his 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 alternative but to
conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously 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 berry 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.”
“What in the name 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 fellow. 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 ventur 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; mus look. Why dis berry curous sarcumstance, 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 knows dat—knows all about dat—’tis 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 person 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 burnished gold, in the last rays of the
setting sun, some of which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which
we stood. The scarabæus 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 accomplished 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 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 digging as quickly as possible.
To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amusement 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 innumerable Southern superstitions about money
buried, and that his phantasy had received confirmation by the finding of
the scarabæus, 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
demonstration, 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 picturesque 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 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 interruption 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 returned, 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 disconcerted, 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 sincerely pitied, at length
clambered from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment 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 sartain?” 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 caracols, 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 dropped 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 understanding what had occasioned the
change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor
imposed. I had become most unaccountably interested—nay, even excited.
Perhaps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of
Legrand—some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me.
I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with
something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure,
the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a period
when such vagaries 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 howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been,
evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a
bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter’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 several
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 disappointment. 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 preservation 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 trelliswork 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 endeavors 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 flashed 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 exhausted with
excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter’s countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for
any negro’s visage to assume. He seemed stupefied—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 soliloquy:

“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 immediately. 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 deposited 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 excitement of the
time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three or four
hours’ duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, 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 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 German 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 rubies 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 hundred massive finger and earrings; 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 Bacchanalian 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 hundred 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 timekeepers valueless; the works having suffered, more or
less, from corrosion—but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great
worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night, at a million
and a half of dollars; and upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and
jewels (a 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 solution 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 scarabæus. 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 discovered 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 moment 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,
proceeded 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 remarkable similarity of outline—at the
singular coincidence involved in 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 scarabæus, and that this skull, not only in outline,
but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of
this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect
of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish 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 gradually a conviction which startled me even far more
than the coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there
had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of the
scarabæus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected 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
moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and
secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth
which last night’s adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I
arose at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all
farther reflection until I should be alone.

“When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook 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 scarabæus was on the coast
of the main land, about a mile eastward 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, before 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
resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.
“Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle 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 consenting, 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 subjects connected with
Natural History. At the same time, without 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 established 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 connexion?’ 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 original
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 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 scarabæus?”
“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 scarabæus, 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 agency. 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
inspecting 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 designed 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. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and
diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green
tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red.
These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material
written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the re-application 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 action 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 experiment, 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 signature. 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 impressed with a
presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why.
Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire 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 observe 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, somewhere 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 resulted, 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 accident 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 carefully rinsed the parchment by
pouring warm water over it, and, 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:
“53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡.)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†
;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*—4)8¶8*;4069285);)
6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?3
4;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;”

“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 inspection of the characters.
These characters, as any one might readily guess, form a cipher—that is to
say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could
not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse
cryptographs. 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 thousand 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, resolve. In fact, having once established
connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere
difficulty of developing their import.
“In the present case—indeed in all cases of secret writing—the first
question regards the language of the cipher; for the principles of solution, so
far, especially, as the more simple ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and
are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no
alternative but experiment (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 letter occurred, as is most likely, (a or I, for
example,) I should have considered the solution as assured. But, there being
no division, my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as
the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:
Of the character 8 there are 33.
; “ 26.
4 “ 19.
‡ ) “ 16.
* “ 13.
5 “ 12.
6 “ 11.
† 1 “ 8.
0 “ 6.
9 2 “ 5.
: 3 “ 4.
? “ 3.
¶ “ 2.
-. “ 1.

“Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.
Afterwards, succession runs thus: a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w b k p q x z.

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 leave, 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 predominant character is 8, we will
commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the
supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples—for e is
doubled with great frequency in English—in such words, for example, as
‘meet,’ ‘.fleet,’ ‘speed,’ ‘seen,’ been,’ ‘agree,’ &c. In the present instance 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 language, ‘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,
assume that ; represents t, 4 represents h, 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 establish a
vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements 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 unknown—
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 experiment 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 thr‡?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 ‘degree,’ and gives us another
letter, d, represented by †.
“Four letters beyond the word ‘degree,’ we perceive the combination
;46(;88.
“Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown 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 n, represented by 6 and *.
“Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53‡‡†.
“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
† “ d
8 “ e
3 “ g
4 “ h
6 “ i
* “ n
‡ “ o
( “ r
; “ t
? “ u

“We have, therefore, no less than eleven 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 species 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 fifty 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 jargon 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 intended by the cryptographist.”
“You mean, to punctuate it?”
“Something of that kind.”
“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 present 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 reference to an old
family, of the 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 negroes 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 demur, she
consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much
difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The
‘castle’ consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks—one of the
latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and
artificial appearance. 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 summit upon which I
stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches, and was not more than a
foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance
to one of the hollow-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 seemed 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 telescope to be used, and a definite
point of view, admitting no variation, 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,
procured a telescope, and returned to the rock.
“I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible 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 minutes’ could allude to nothing but elevation above
the visible horizon, 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 I 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, while ‘shoot from the left eye of the
death’s head’ admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search
for buried treasure. 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 beneath this point I thought it at least
possible that a deposit of value lay concealed.”
“All this,” I said, “is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious, 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,’ however, the circular
rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards, turn as I would.
What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business, is the fact (for
repeated experiment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening
in question is visible from no other attainable point of view than that
afforded 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 contrived 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,’ together with the nearest point of the tree, were
merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the
error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded 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 secreted 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 sufficient, while
his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen—who shall
tell?”

FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-
CAMELEOPARD
Chacun a ses vertus.

—Crébillon’s Xerxes.

Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the
prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to
Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian
monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious
embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the
sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ;
his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable
hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable
death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of
a prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of
his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical
achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and
reputation.
Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three
thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine
ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of
Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen cities
of that appellation, besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But
ours is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its
vicinity to the little village of Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity.
It was built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus
Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory
of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the
Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman Empire, it was the

ordinary station of the prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the
emperors of the queen city (among whom may be mentioned, especially,
Verus and Valens) spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive
we have arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw
our eyes upon the town and neighboring country.
“What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with
innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through
the wilderness of buildings?”
That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the exception of
the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror, about twelve miles
off to the southward. Every one has seen the Mediterranean; but let me tell
you, there are few who have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean, few
who, like you and me, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a
modern education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your whole
attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You will remember that
it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were
it later—for example, were it the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and
forty-five, we should be deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the
nineteenth century Antioch is—that is to say, Antioch will be—in a
lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time, totally destroyed,
at three different periods, by three successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say
the truth, what little of its former self may then remain, will be found in so
desolate and ruinous a state that the patriarch shall have removed his
residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my advice, and are
making the most of your time in inspecting the premises—in
—satisfying your eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That most renown this city.—

I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish for
seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the appearance of
Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?
“It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to nature as to
art.”
Very true.
“There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.”

There are.
“And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear
comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.”
All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts, and
abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth in every
kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering fumes of idolatrous incense, I
have no doubt we should find a most intolerable stench. Did you ever
behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall? What
gloom their shadows cast upon the ground! It is well the swinging lamps in
those endless colonnades are kept burning throughout the day; we should
otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her desolation.
“It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder singular
building? See! it towers above all others, and lies to the eastward of what I
take to be the royal palace!”
That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the title
of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will institute
this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen, Heliogabalus. I dare
say you would like to take a peep at the divinity of the temple. You need not
look up at the heavens; his Sunship is not there—at least not the Sunship
adored by the Syrians. That deity will be found in the interior of yonder
building. He is worshipped under the figure of a large stone pillar
terminating at the summit in a cone or pyramid, whereby is denoted Fire.
“Hark—behold!—who can those ridiculous beings be, half naked, with
their faces painted, shouting and gesticulating to the rabble?”
Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the race
of philosophers. The greatest portion, however—those especially who
belabor the populace with clubs—are the principal courtiers of the palace,
executing as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of the king’s.
“But what have we here? Heavens! the town is swarming with wild
beasts! How terrible a spectacle!—how dangerous a peculiarity!”
Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal
if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake
of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but
these are chiefly the lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the
leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without

difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective
owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions
when Nature asserts her violated dominions;—but then the devouring of a
man-at-arms, or the throttling of a consecrated bull, is a circumstance of too
little moment to be more than hinted at in Epidaphne.
“But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud noise even
for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual interest.”
Yes—undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle—some
gladiatorial exhibition at the hippodrome—or perhaps the massacre of the
Scythian prisoners—or the conflagration of his new palace—or the tearing
down of a handsome temple—or, indeed, a bonfire of a few Jews. The
uproar increases. Shouts of laughter ascend the skies. The air becomes
dissonant with wind instruments, and horrible with clamor of a million
throats. Let us descend, for the love of fun, and see what is going on! This
way—be careful! Here we are in the principal street, which is called the
street of Timarchus. The sea of people is coming this way, and we shall find
a difficulty in stemming the tide. They are pouring through the alley of
Heraclides, which leads directly from the palace;—therefore the king is
most probably among the rioters. Yes—I hear the shouts of the herald
proclaiming his approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall
have a glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let us
ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the sanctuary; he will be here anon.
In the meantime let us survey this image. What is it? Oh! it is the god
Ashimah in proper person. You perceive, however, that he is neither a lamb,
nor a goat, nor a satyr, neither has he much resemblance to the Pan of the
Arcadians. Yet all these appearances have been given—I beg pardon—will
be given—by the learned of future ages, to the Ashimah of the Syrians. Put
on your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is it?
“Bless me! it is an ape!”
True—a baboon; but by no means the less a deity. His name is a
derivation of the Greek Simia—what great fools are antiquarians! But see!
—see!—yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he going? What is
he bawling about? What does he say? Oh! he says the king is coming in
triumph; that he is dressed in state; that he has just finished putting to death,
with his own hand, a thousand chained Israelitish prisoners! For this exploit
the ragamuffin is lauding him to the skies! Hark! here comes a troop of a

similar description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the valor of the
king, and are singing it as they go:
Mille, mille, mille,
Mille, mille, mille,
Decollavimus, unus homo!
Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
Mille, mille, mille,
Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum sanguinis effudit!(*1)

Which may be thus paraphrased:
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
We, with one warrior, have slain!
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand.
Sing a thousand over again!
Soho!—let us sing
Long life to our king,
Who knocked over a thousand so fine!
Soho!—let us roar,
He has given us more
Red gallons of gore
Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

“Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?”
Yes—the king is coming! See! the people are aghast with admiration, and
lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence. He comes!—he is coming!—
there he is!
“Who?—where?—the king?—do not behold him—cannot say that I
perceive him.”
Then you must be blind.
“Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of idiots and
madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before a gigantic
cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the animal’s hoofs. See!
the beast has very justly kicked one of the rabble over—and another—and
another—and another. Indeed, I cannot help admiring the animal for the
excellent use he is making of his feet.”
Rabble, indeed!—why these are the noble and free citizens of Epidaphne!
Beasts, did you say?—take care that you are not overheard. Do you not
perceive that the animal has the visage of a man? Why, my dear sir, that

cameleopard is no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the
Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most potent of all the autocrats of the
East! It is true, that he is entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes—Antiochus
the madman—but that is because all people have not the capacity to
appreciate his merits. It is also certain that he is at present ensconced in the
hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play the part of a cameleopard; but
this is done for the better sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the
monarch is of gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither
unbecoming nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have
adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such, you will allow, is
the massacre of a thousand Jews. With how superior a dignity the monarch
perambulates on all fours! His tail, you perceive, is held aloft by his two
principal concubines, Elline and Argelais; and his whole appearance would
be infinitely prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his eyes,
which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color of his face,
which has become nondescript from the quantity of wine he has swallowed.
Let us follow him to the hippodrome, whither he is proceeding, and listen to
the song of triumph which he is commencing:
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Say—do you know?
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Bravo!—bravo!
There is none but Epiphanes,
No—there is none:
So tear down the temples,
And put out the sun!

Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him ‘Prince of
Poets,’ as well as ‘Glory of the East,’ ‘Delight of the Universe,’ and ‘Most
Remarkable of Cameleopards.’ They have encored his effusion, and do you
hear?—he is singing it over again. When he arrives at the hippodrome, he
will be crowned with the poetic wreath, in anticipation of his victory at the
approaching Olympics.
“But, good Jupiter! what is the matter in the crowd behind us?”
Behind us, did you say?—oh! ah!—I perceive. My friend, it is well that
you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon as possible.
Here!—let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this aqueduct, and I will
inform you presently of the origin of the commotion. It has turned out as I

have been anticipating. The singular appearance of the cameleopard and the
head of a man, has, it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety
entertained, in general, by the wild animals domesticated in the city. A
mutiny has been the result; and, as is usual upon such occasions, all human
efforts will be of no avail in quelling the mob. Several of the Syrians have
already been devoured; but the general voice of the four-footed patriots
seems to be for eating up the cameleopard. ‘The Prince of Poets,’ therefore,
is upon his hinder legs, running for his life. His courtiers have left him in
the lurch, and his concubines have followed so excellent an example.
‘Delight of the Universe,’ thou art in a sad predicament! ‘Glory of the East,’
thou art in danger of mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy
tail; it will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no
help. Look not behind thee, then, at its unavoidable degradation; but take
courage, ply thy legs with vigor, and scud for the hippodrome! Remember
that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus the Illustrious!—also ‘Prince
of Poets,’ ‘Glory of the East,’ ‘Delight of the Universe,’ and ‘Most
Remarkable of Cameleopards!’ Heavens! what a power of speed thou art
displaying! What a capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince!
—Bravo, Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard!—Glorious Antiochus!—He
runs!—he leaps!—he flies! Like an arrow from a catapult he approaches the
hippodrome! He leaps!—he shrieks!—he is there! This is well; for hadst
thou, ‘Glory of the East,’ been half a second longer in reaching the gates of
the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear’s cub in Epidaphne that would not
have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off—let us take our departure!—
for we shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar
which is about to commence in celebration of the king’s escape! Listen! it
has already commenced. See!—the whole town is topsy-turvy.
“Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a wilderness of
people! what a jumble of all ranks and ages! what a multiplicity of sects and
nations! what a variety of costumes! what a Babel of languages! what a
screaming of beasts! what a tinkling of instruments! what a parcel of
philosophers!”
Come let us be off.
“Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the hippodrome; what is the
meaning of it, I beseech you?”

That?—oh, nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne being, as
they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor, wisdom, and divinity of their
king, and having, moreover, been eye-witnesses of his late superhuman
agility, do think it no more than their duty to invest his brows (in addition to
the poetic crown) with the wreath of victory in the footrace—a wreath
which it is evident he must obtain at the celebration of the next Olympiad,
and which, therefore, they now give him in advance.

Footnotes—Four Beasts
(*1) Flavius Vospicus says, that the hymn here introduced was sung by
the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having slain,
with his own hand, nine hundred and fifty of the enemy.

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 conjecture.

—Sir Thomas 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 ordinary apprehension præternatural. 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 operations, has been called, as if par
excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate 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
misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a
somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; 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 multiplied; 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 variation,
the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention
being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages 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
recherché 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 unfrequently sees thus, at
a glance, the sole methods (sometime 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 implies 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 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
comprehensible. 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 companions; and the difference in the extent of the
information obtained, 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 opponents. 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 gathering 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 manner 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 ample ingenuity; for
while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often
remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive 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 otherwise 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 analogous. It will be found, in
fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never
otherwise than analytic.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the
light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

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 succumbed 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 necessaries 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 Montmartre, 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 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 furnishing in a
style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-
eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into
which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate
portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we
should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps, as madmen of a
harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed
the locality of our retirement 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 counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed
all the messy 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 (although 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 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 intimate
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 entire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him 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 excited, or perhaps of a diseased intelligence.
But of the character 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 minutes 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 Théâtre
des Variétés.”

“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 myself, 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 reflections.
Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming
stage-mad, had attempted the rôle of Xerxes, in Crébillon’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 whomsoever.”
“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 thoroughfare where we stood; but what this
had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.
There was not a particle of charlatânerie 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 particular conclusions of

their own minds have been attained. The occupation 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 acknowledging
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 large basket upon his head, brushing quickly
past us, thrust you upon a pile of paving stones collected at a spot where the
causeway 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 petulant
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 casting your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I
certainly 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 yesterday’s ‘Musée,’ 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 written
Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, 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 thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation. So far, you had
been stooping in your gait; 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
Théâtre des Variétés.”
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 gendarmes. 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 inside, 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 métal d’Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four thousand francs in
gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood in one corner were open, and
had been, apparently, rifled, although 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 considerable 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 ‘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 material 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 excellent pay. Could not speak in regard to

their mode or means of 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 neighborhood, 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 upper 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 daughter, 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 Musèt, 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
not top. The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced—and then
suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (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 ‘sacré’ and ‘diable.’ 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, deposes that he
was one of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates the
testimony of Musèt 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 conversed 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 distressing. Was one of those who entered the building. Corroborated
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 ‘sacré,’ ‘diable,’
and once ‘mon Dieu.’
“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 went 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 by-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 Frenchman. Could make out several words, but cannot now
remember all. Heard distinctly ‘sacré’ and ‘mon Dieu.’ There was a sound
at the moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and scuffling
sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the gruff one. Is sure
that it was not the voice of an Englishman. 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 reached 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 removed 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 (mansardes.) 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 Garcio, 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 unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the
general testimony. Is an Italian. Never conversed with a native 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 chimney 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. 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 evidently the impression of
fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls protruded. The
tongue had been partially 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 seen 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 police 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 excitement still
continued in the Quartier St. Roch—that the premises in question had been
carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of witnesses instituted, but all
to no purpose. A postscript, however, mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had
been arrested and imprisoned—although nothing appeared to criminate him,
beyond 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 imprisoned, that he asked me my
opinion respecting the murders.
I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble
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 robe-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, their 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
impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps,
one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing 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 turning 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 capacity for
comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and
it is possible to make even Venus herself 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 rendered 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 necessary
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—Dupin, 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 dwelling, 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
scrutinized 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 until dark, when we took our
departure. On our way home my 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 les
ménageais:—for this phrase there is no English equivalent. 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 insoluble, for the very reason which
should cause it to be regarded as easy of solution—I mean for the outré
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 discovered 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; 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 asked ‘what has occurred,’ as ‘what
has occurred that has never occurred before.’ In fact, the facility with which
I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mystery, is in the direct
ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes of the police.”
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 arrive;
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 soliloquy. 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
commonly 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 entirely 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?”
I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the gruff
voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in regard to
the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh voice.
“That was the evidence itself,” said Dupin, “but it was not the peculiarity
of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive. Yet there was
something to be observed. The witnesses, as you remark, agreed about the
gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the
peculiarity is—not that they disagreed—but that, while an Italian, an
Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted 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 countrymen. 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; but
we find it stated that ‘not understanding French this witness was examined
through an interpreter.’ The Englishman thinks it the voice of a German,
and ‘does not understand German.’ The Spaniard ‘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 positive that the voice was that of an Italian;
but, not being cognizant of that tongue, is, like the Spaniard, ‘convinced by
the intonation.’ Now, how strangely unusual must that voice have really
been, about which such testimony as this could have been elicited!—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. Neither 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 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 deductions
are the sole proper ones, and that the suspicion arises inevitably from them
as the single result. What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I
merely wish you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently
forcible to give a definite form—a certain tendency—to my 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 præternatural events. Madame
and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits. The doers of
the deed were material, and escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately,
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 trusting to their eyes, I
examined with my own. There were, then, no secret issues. Both doors
leading from the rooms into the passage 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
manner as we are, it is not our part, as reasoners, to reject it on account 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 unobstructed by
furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion 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
supererogation 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 refastened 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 know, 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 person 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 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 looked over the head-board
minutely at the second casement. Passing 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
appearance of its fellow in the other window; but this fact was an absolute
nullity (conclusive as it might seem to be) when compared 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
resemblance to a perfect nail was complete—the fissure was invisible.
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. Dropping of its own accord upon
his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become fastened by the spring;
and it was the retention of 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 building. 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 ferrades
—a kind rarely employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very

old mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux. 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—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, examined 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 examination. 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 have 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 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 understanding the very extraordinary—the almost
præternatural character 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 juxtaposition, 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 convey 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
remained 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
habiliment. 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 encumber himself with a bundle of linen? The
gold was abandoned. 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 delivery 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. Coincidences, 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 corroborative 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 outré—something
altogether irreconcilable with our common notions 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 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 exerted in uprooting perhaps
half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely
cut, but the head absolutely 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 instrument 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 hermetically
sealed against the possibility of the windows having ever been opened at
all.
“If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected 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 grotesquerie 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 Santé.”
“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, however incoherent in its words, has always the coherence
of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold
in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly 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 decide 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. I see that no animal but an Ourang-
Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have impressed the
indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair, too, is
identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly
comprehend the particulars 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 will remember an expression attributed almost
unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression, ‘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 solution 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 circumstances 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 appreciable 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 Frenchman 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 interest,
and much sought by sailors), will bring him to our residence.”
He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

CAUGHT—In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the ——inst.,
(the morning of the murder), a very large, tawny Ourang-Outang of the

Bornese species. The owner (who is ascertained 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 troisième.

“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. Moreover, this knot is one which few besides
sailors can tie, and is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the
foot of the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the
deceased. 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 Frenchman
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 distance from the scene of that butchery. How can it ever be
suspected that a brute beast should have done the deed? The police 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, I am
known. The advertiser 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.”
The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor 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 otherwise unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us
“good evening,” in French accents, which, although somewhat
Neufchatelish, were still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.
“Sit down, my friend,” 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?”
“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 nothing, sir,” said
the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing 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.”
Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. 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 suffocation. 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 boldness 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 believe 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 excursion of pleasure. Himself and a
companion had captured the Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the
animal fell into his 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 splinter on board ship. His
ultimate design was to sell it.
Returning home from some sailors’ frolic 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, attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had
no doubt previously 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 accustomed, 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,
unfortunately 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 perceived 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 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
difficulty, 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’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had apparently
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 immediately 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 Madame
L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing it,) and
was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation 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. Its wandering and wild
glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over 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 dreaded whip, was instantly converted into
fear. Conscious of having deserved punishment, 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 clambering 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 breaking 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 Don was instantly released, upon our narration of the
circumstances (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. Nevertheless, 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’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.’” (*)
(*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse.

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)

A SEQUEL 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 modificiren gewohulich 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 of 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 imperfect. Thus with the Reformation;
instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.—Novalis.(*2) 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-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
Calculus 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 spirituality 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 coincidences, whose secondary or concluding
branch will be recognized by all readers in the late murder of Mary Cecila
Rogers, at New York.

When, in an article entitled “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” I
endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable features in
the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier 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 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 character 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 Chevalier’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 agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long
ceased. It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of the political
eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his
services at the Prefecture. One of the most remarkable instances was that of
the murder of a young girl named Marie Rogêt.
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 unfortunate “cigar girl,” was the only

daughter of the widow Estelle Rogêt. 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 Pavée Saint Andrée;
(*3) Madame there keeping a pension, assisted by Marie. Affairs went on
thus until the latter had attained her twenty-second year, when her great
beauty attracted the notice of a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in
the basement of the Palais Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the
desperate adventurers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blanc (*4)
was not unaware of the advantages to be derived from the attendance of the
fair Marie in his perfumery; and his liberal proposals were 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 admirers were thrown info confusion
by her sudden disappearance from the shop. Monsieur Le Blanc was unable
to account for her absence, and Madame Rogêt 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-appearance 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, ostensibly 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 Pavée Saint
Andrée.
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 Andrée, and at a point not very far distant from the secluded
neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule. (*6)

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 intense 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 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 necessary 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 individuals 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
émeutes, 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
assassins.” In the proclamation setting forth this reward, a full pardon 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 citizens, offering ten thousand francs, in
addition to the amount proposed by the Prefecture. The entire reward thus
stood at no less than thirty thousand francs, which will be regarded as an
extraordinary 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 instances, arrests
were made which promised elucidation, yet nothing 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 researches which absorbed our
whole attention, it had been nearly a month since either of us had gone
abroad, or received a visitor, 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 certainly 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;
of 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 accustomed arm-
chair, was the embodiment of respectful attention. He wore spectacles,
during the whole interview; and an occasional signal 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 published any decisive
information in regard to this sad affair. Freed from all that was positively
disproved, this mass of information stood thus:
Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée St.
Andrée, 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, (*7) and to him only, of her intention to spend the day with an
aunt who resided in the Rue des Drômes. The Rue des Drômes is a short
and narrow but populous 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 Rogêt. St. Eustache was the accepted 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 Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady, seventy years
of age,) was heard to express a fear “that she should never see Marie
again;” but this observation attracted little attention at the time.
On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue des
Drômes; 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 disappearance that any
thing satisfactory was ascertained respecting her. On this day, (Wednesday,
the twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais, (*8) who, with a friend, had
been making inquiries for Marie near the Barrière du Roule, on the shore of
the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, 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 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 interred 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 before any public emotion resulted. A weekly paper, (*9)
however, at length took up the theme; the corpse was disinterred, and a re-
examination instituted; but nothing was elicited beyond what has been
already noted. The clothes, however, were now submitted to the mother and
friends of the deceased, and fully identified as those worn by the girl upon
leaving home.
Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals 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 Rogêt still lived—that the corpse found in the Seine was
that of some other unfortunate. It will be proper that I submit to the reader

some passages which embody the suggestion alluded to. These passages are
literal translations from L’Etoile, (*10) a paper conducted, in general, with
much ability.
“Mademoiselle Rogêt 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 Rue des Drômes. 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 Rogêt 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 discovered
afloat on the shore of the Barrière de Roule. This was, even if we presume
that Marie Rogêt 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 the light.... Thus we see that if the body found in the river was that of
Marie Rogêt, 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 days for 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
exceedingly 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 Rogêt? He ripped up the gown sleeve, and
says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity. The public
generally 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 Rogêt, at seven o’clock, on Wednesday evening, that an
investigation was still in progress respecting her daughter. If we allow that
Madame Rogêt, from her age and grief, could not go over, (which is
allowing a great deal,) there certainly 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 Pavée St. Andrée, 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 chamber 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 involving a charge against her chastity; and that
these friends, upon the discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat
resembling that of the girl, had availed themselves of the opportunity to
impress 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 distracted with grief, and bore himself so frantically, that
M. Beauvais 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 sculpture 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 Rogêt’s house, M.
Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected there,
and she, Madame B., must not say anything to the gendarme until he
returned, 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 visitor 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 victim of a gang of
desperadoes—that by these she had been borne across the river, maltreated
and murdered. Le Commerciel, (*11) 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 Barrière 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 Barrière du Roule, or to the Rue
des Drômes, 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
Barrière du Roule, there would have been no necessity for any such
arrangement. The fact that the body was found floating near the Barrière, is
no proof as to where it was thrown into the water..... A piece of one of the
unfortunate 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 overthrow, 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 Barrière du
Roule, chanced to penetrate a close thicket, within which were three or four
large stones, forming 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 Rogêt.” 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.
A weekly paper, Le Soleil,(*12) 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 doubled 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. Madame Deluc
testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the bank of the river,
opposite the Barrière du Roule. The neighborhood is secluded—particularly
so. It is the usual Sunday resort of blackguards from the city, who cross the
river in boats. About three o’clock, in the afternoon of the Sunday in
question, 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 particularly
noticed. Soon after the departure of the couple, 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.
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. An omnibus driver, Valence, (*13) now also
testified that he saw Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the Seine, on the Sunday
in question, 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 relatives of Marie.
The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself, from the
newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only one more point—
but this was a point of seemingly vast consequence. It appears that,
immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above described, the
lifeless, or nearly lifeless body of St. Eustache, Marie’s betrothed, was
found in the vicinity of what all now supposed the scene of the outrage. A
phial labelled “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 perusal of my
notes, “that this is a far more intricate case than 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 outré about it.
You will observe 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 reward. The myrmidons
of G—— were able at once to comprehend how and why such an atrocity
might have been committed. They could picture to their imaginations a
mode—many modes—and a motive—many motives; and because it was
not impossible that either of these numerous modes and motives could have
been the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one of them must.
But the case 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 ordinary, 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, (*14) the agents of G
—— were discouraged and confounded by that very unusualness which, to
a properly regulated 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 Barrière 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 Rogêt for
the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, the reward 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 inquiries 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 Monsieur 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 Rogêt 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.’ 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 founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no
credit with the mob. The mass of the people regard as profound only him
who suggests pungent contradictions of the general idea. In ratiocination,
not less than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most immediately
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 Rogêt 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; endeavoring 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, becomes thus, at once, an object with the
reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption
at the outset. ‘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 committed within five minutes after the girl’s
quitting her mother’s house? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was
committed at any given period of the day? There have been assassinations
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 assumption, then, amounts precisely to this—that the
murder was not committed on Sunday at all—and, if we allow L’Etoile to
assume this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The paragraph
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 safely 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
assassination 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 cöincident 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:
‘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 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.’
“These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris, with
the exception of Le Moniteur. (*15) This latter print endeavors to combat
that portion of the paragraph which has reference to ‘drowned bodies’ only,
by citing some five or six instances 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
unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to rebut the
general assertion of L’Etoile, by a citation of particular instances 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, until 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 adduced 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 human body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of
fresh water which it displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy persons, with
small bones, and of women generally, are lighter than 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 presence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this
tide out of question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at
all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one, falling 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 position. 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 quantity 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 again becomes 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 cellular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the
puffed appearance which is so horrible. When this distension has so far
progressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased without 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 modified 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 temperament of
the body, by its infection or freedom from disease before 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 imbedded,
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 experience shows,’ says this
paper, ‘that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately
after death by violence, require 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 inconsequence
and incoherence. All experience does not show that ‘drowned bodies’
require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to
bring them to the surface. Both science and experience show that the period
of their rising is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a
body has 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 violence.’ Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule, would
not sink at all—a fact of which L’Etoile is evidently ignorant. 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 Rogêt, 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 reappeared in twenty-four hours, or
less. But no one supposes 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 mangled 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
decomposition—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 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 convinced,’ it says, ‘that the body
found was that of a murdered female.’
“Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject, 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 finding 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 Rogêt 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 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 reference to the
identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the hair upon the arm,
L’Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M. Beauvais, not being an idiot,
could never have urged, in identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its
arm. No arm is without 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,’ says the journal, ‘was small—so 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

found, 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 augment the probability as to verge upon the
certain. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity, becomes through
its corroborative 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 deceased, 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 garters being
an usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own pertinacity in error. The
elastic nature of the clasp-garter is self-demonstration of the unusualness 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 appearance—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 inquirendo. He has
thought it sagacious to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most
part, content 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 booked 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 philosophical; but it is not the less
certain that it engenders vast individual error. (*16)
“In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be willing to
dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed the true character of
this good gentleman. He is a busy-body, with much of romance and little of
wit. Any one so constituted will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion
of real excitement, 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 evidence ‘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 recognizes
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-bodyism, 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 slate; the ‘elbowing the male relatives out of
the way;’ the ‘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.’ 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 shall now
proceed as if the question of identity were settled to our perfect
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 deductions 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 he seldom
passes so far as a dozen blocks from his own bureau, without being
recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal
acquaintance 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, 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 individuals 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 proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many
routes between 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 acquaintances 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 suggestion 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, ‘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. Between 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, 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 description
of people who will always be found to have handkerchiefs 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 already 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 this appalling outrage has been
discovered.’ 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 investigations. You
cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of the
corpse. To be sure, the question of identity was readily determined, or
should have been; but there were other points to be ascertained. Had the
body been in any respect despoiled? Had the deceased any articles of
jewelry about her person upon leaving home? if so, had she any when
found? These are important 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 inquiry. 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. Eustache from our investigations.
His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be
deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an
unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the
line of ordinary 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 apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true
philosophy 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 incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous
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 expectation. 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
calculation. We subject the unlooked 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 accordance 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 contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the
validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than
you have as yet done. So far, we have only reconnoitred the field of
investigation; but it will be strange indeed if a comprehensive survey, such
as I propose, of the public prints, will not afford us some minute points
which shall establish a direction for inquiry.”
In pursuance of Dupin’s suggestion, I made scrupulous examination of
the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction 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 scrutiny 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
present, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Rogêt, 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 Monsieur 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 expiration of a week, or perhaps of a month, we shall have her among us
again.”—Evening Paper—Monday, June 23. (*17)
“An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious
disappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. 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, providentially led to her return home. We have the name of the
Lothario in question, who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but, for obvious
reasons, forbear to make it public.”—Le Mercurie—Tuesday Morning, June
24. (*18)
“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
reaching 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 25. (*19)
“We have received one or two communications, the object of which is to
fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; (*20) but as this
gentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal inquiry, and as the
arguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous than
profound, we do not think it advisable to make them public.”—Morning
Paper—June 28. (*21)
“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 Rogêt 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—
Tuesday, June 31. (*22)

“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
morning 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 waited for some explanation from
Dupin.
“It is not my present design,” he said, “to dwell upon the first and second
of those 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 disappearance 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 elopement has again taken place) as
indicating a renewal of the betrayer’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 with Marie,
would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom proposals
of elopement had been made by one individual, 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 accomplished—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 Barrière 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 Rogêt on the morning of Marie’s
departure?—‘I fear that I shall never see Marie again.’
“But if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt 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 Drômes 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 Barrière 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 purpose—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. Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour appointed,
in the Rue des Drômes, 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 suspicion; 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 pursuit—I will give it to be understood
that I shall visit and spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes—I
will tell St. Eustache not to call for me until dark—in this way, my absence
from home for the longest possible period, without causing suspicion 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 individual 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 ignorance, 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 Drômes. But, as it is my design never
to return—or not for some weeks—or not until certain concealments are
effected—the gaining of time is the only point about which I need give
myself any concern.’
“You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion 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 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’s 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 perpetuated, by a gang of young
ruffians, upon the person of a second young female. Is it wonderful that the
one known atrocity should influence the popular judgment in regard to the
other unknown? This judgment awaited direction, and the known outrage
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 circumstances, 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 coincidence,
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 Barrière du Roule. This thicket, although
dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road. 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
handkerchief bore the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ 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 Pavée St. Andrée, 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 redivert this attention. And thus, the thicket of the
Barrière du Roule having been already suspected, the idea of placing the
articles where they were found, might have been naturally entertained.
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 afternoon 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; for
these boys removed the articles and took them home before they had been
seen by a third party. But grass will grow, especially 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 upspringing
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 triumphantly adduced
in support of the idea that the articles had been ‘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 single week—for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next.
Those who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the extreme
difficulty of finding seclusion unless at a great distance from its suburbs.
Such a thing as an unexplored, or even an unfrequently 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
weekdays, 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 personal 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 wanderer 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 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 counterfeit hilarity—the
joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing more than what must be
obvious to every dispassionate observer, 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, almost 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 directing of
attention to a gang as the perpetrators of the outrage, and to the
neighborhood of the Barrière 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 communication, 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 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 enthroned 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
Rogêt.’ 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 trampled 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 nail becoming entangled in them, tears them
rectangularly—divides 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 example, 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
matter 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 hem,’—that is to say, was torn
completely out through the agency of thorns, from the uncaged 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 circumstance 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
possibly, 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 murder. 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 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 revolting details of
the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only necessary to say that his
published inferences, in regard to the number of 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
another?
“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 directions—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 urged 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 conceive, 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 accidentally 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 accident of a gang. We can imagine it only
the accident of an individual. 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, 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? 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 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 superfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for the
purpose of dragging 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?
“And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an
observation upon which I have already, in some measure, commented. ‘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 handkerchief for the purpose imagined by
Le Commerciel, that this bandage was employed, is rendered apparent by
the handkerchief 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 evidence 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 the head
would prevent its slipping off. And, now, the murderer bethought 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 ‘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 ‘bandage,’ only
attainable with trouble and delay, and but imperfectly answering its purpose
—that this bandage was employed at all, demonstrates that the necessity for
its employment sprang from circumstances 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 Barrière 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 putting themselves to the trouble
of making her payment. Et hinc illæ iræ?
“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 recrossed 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 compensation. 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,
when a wide river is to be crossed in small boats, when storm impends, 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 Barrière du Roule prior to the screams overheard (?) by Madame
Deluc. And although, in all the many reports of the evidence, the relative
expressions 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 altogether 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
betrayed his accomplices. Each one of a gang so placed, is not so much
greedy of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of betrayal. 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 Barrière 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
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 corroboration. The circumstance of the first elopement, as
mentioned by Le Mercurie, tends to blend the idea of this seaman with that
of the ‘naval officer’ who is first known to have led the unfortunate into
crime.
“And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued 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 consideration 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 announce 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 suspicion. We cannot
suppose him, on the night of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and
incognizant of an outrage committed. 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 elopement. Let us know the full history of
‘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 vehemently 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 appearance and bearing of the ‘man of dark
complexion.’ Queries, skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of
these parties, information on this particular point (or upon others)—
information which the parties themselves may not even be aware of
possessing. And let us now trace the boat picked up by the bargeman 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 abandoned, without
inquiry, by one altogether at ease in heart. And here let me pause to
insinuate a question. There was no advertisement 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 connexion leading to
cognizance of its minute in interests—its petty local news?

“In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore, I
have already suggested the probability of his availing himself of a boat.
Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was precipitated from a boat.
This would naturally have been 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 attached. 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 remain. Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let us
pursue our fancies.—In the morning, the wretch is stricken with unutterable
horror at finding that the boat has been picked up and detained 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 result desired was brought to pass; and that the Prefect
fulfilled punctually, although with reluctance, the terms of his compact with

the Chevalier. Mr. Poe’s article concludes with the following words.—Eds.
(*23)]
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 præter-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
Rogêt 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
supposed that, in proceeding with the sad narrative of Marie from the epoch
just mentioned, and in tracing to its dénouement the mystery which
enshrouded her, it is my covert design to hint at an extension 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 inappreciable, 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
view that the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have referred, 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
example, 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 throwing
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 of Reason through her propensity
for seeking truth in detail.

FOOTNOTES—Marie Rogêt
(*1) Upon the original publication of “Marie Roget,” the foot-notes now
appended 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,
although 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
applicable 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
afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed

himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It may not be
improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons, (one
of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative) made, at different periods, long
subsequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general
conclusion, but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that
conclusion was attained.
(*2) The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.
(*3) Nassau Street.
(*4) Anderson.
(*5) The Hudson.
(*6) Weehawken.
(*7) Payne.
(*8) Crommelin.
(*9) The New York “Mercury.”
(*10) The New York “Brother Jonathan,” edited by H. Hastings Weld,
Esq.
(*11) New York “Journal of Commerce.”
(*12) Philadelphia “Saturday Evening Post,” edited by C. I. Peterson,
Esq.
(*13) Adam
(*14) See “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
(*15) The New York “Commercial Advertiser,” edited by Col. Stone.
(*16) “A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being
unfolded 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.
(*17) New York “Express”
(*18) New York “Herald.”
(*19) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”

(*20) Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and arrested,
but discharged through total lack of evidence.
(*21) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”
(*22) New York “Evening Post.”
(*23) Of the Magazine in which the article was originally published.

THE BALLOON-HOAX

[Astounding News by Express, via Norfolk!—The Atlantic
crossed in Three Days! Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck
Mason’s Flying Machine!—Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near
Charlestown, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr.
Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in the
Steering Balloon, “Victoria,” after a passage of Seventy-five
Hours from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!
The subjoined jeu d’esprit with the preceding heading in
magnificent capitals, well interspersed with notes of
admiration, was originally published, as matter of fact, in the
“New York Sun,” a daily newspaper, and therein fully
subserved the purpose of creating indigestible aliment for
the quidnuncs during the few hours intervening between a
couple of the Charleston mails. The rush for the “sole paper
which had the news,” was something beyond even the
prodigious; and, in fact, if (as some assert) the “Victoria” did
not absolutely accomplish the voyage recorded, it will be
difficult to assign a reason why she should not have
accomplished it.]

The great problem is at length solved! The air, as well as the earth and
the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become a common and
convenient highway for mankind. The Atlantic has been actually crossed in
a Balloon! and this too without difficulty—without any great apparent
danger—with thorough control of the machine—and in the inconceivably
brief period of seventy-five hours from shore to shore! By the energy of an
agent at Charleston, S.C., we are enabled to be the first to furnish the public
with a detailed account of this most extraordinary voyage, which was
performed between Saturday, the 6th instant, at 11, A.M., and 2, P.M., on

Tuesday, the 9th instant, by Sir Everard Bringhurst; Mr. Osborne, a nephew
of Lord Bentinck’s; Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland, the well-
known æronauts; Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, author of “Jack Sheppard,” &c.;
and Mr. Henson, the projector of the late unsuccessful flying machine—
with two seamen from Woolwich—in all, eight persons. The particulars
furnished below may be relied on as authentic and accurate in every respect,
as, with a slight exception, they are copied verbatim from the joint diaries
of Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our
agent is also indebted for much verbal information respecting the balloon
itself, its construction, and other matters of interest. The only alteration in
the MS. received, has been made for the purpose of throwing the hurried
account of our agent, Mr. Forsyth, into a connected and intelligible form.
“THE BALLOON.
“Two very decided failures, of late—those of Mr. Henson and Sir George
Cayley—had much weakened the public interest in the subject of aerial
navigation. Mr. Henson’s scheme (which at first was considered very
feasible even by men of science,) was founded upon the principle of an
inclined plane, started from an eminence by an extrinsic force, applied and
continued by the revolution of impinging vanes, in form and number
resembling the vanes of a windmill. But, in all the experiments made with
models at the Adelaide Gallery, it was found that the operation of these fans
not only did not propel the machine, but actually impeded its flight. The
only propelling force it ever exhibited, was the mere impetus acquired from
the descent of the inclined plane; and this impetus carried the machine
farther when the vanes were at rest, than when they were in motion—a fact
which sufficiently demonstrates their inutility; and in the absence of the
propelling, which was also the sustaining power, the whole fabric would
necessarily descend. This consideration led Sir George Cayley to think only
of adapting a propeller to some machine having of itself an independent
power of support—in a word, to a balloon; the idea, however, being novel,
or original, with Sir George, only so far as regards the mode of its
application to practice. He exhibited a model of his invention at the
Polytechnic Institution. The propelling principle, or power, was here, also,
applied to interrupted surfaces, or vanes, put in revolution. These vanes
were four in number, but were found entirely ineffectual in moving the
balloon, or in aiding its ascending power. The whole project was thus a
complete failure.

“It was at this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from
Dover to Weilburg in the balloon, “Nassau,” occasioned so much
excitement in 1837,) conceived the idea of employing the principle of the
Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion through the air—rightly
attributing the failure of Mr. Henson’s scheme, and of Sir George Cayley’s,
to the interruption of surface in the independent vanes. He made the first
public experiment at Willis’s Rooms, but afterward removed his model to
the Adelaide Gallery.
“Like Sir George Cayley’s balloon, his own was an ellipsoid. Its length
was thirteen feet six inches—height, six feet eight inches. It contained about
three hundred and twenty cubic feet of gas, which, if pure hydrogen, would
support twenty-one pounds upon its first inflation, before the gas has time
to deteriorate or escape. The weight of the whole machine and apparatus
was seventeen pounds—leaving about four pounds to spare. Beneath the
centre of the balloon, was a frame of light wood, about nine feet long, and
rigged on to the balloon itself with a network in the customary manner.
From this framework was suspended a wicker basket or car.
“The screw consists of an axis of hollow brass tube, eighteen inches in
length, through which, upon a semi-spiral inclined at fifteen degrees, pass a
series of steel wire radii, two feet long, and thus projecting a foot on either
side. These radii are connected at the outer extremities by two bands of
flattened wire—the whole in this manner forming the framework of the
screw, which is completed by a covering of oiled silk cut into gores, and
tightened so as to present a tolerably uniform surface. At each end of its
axis this screw is supported by pillars of hollow brass tube descending from
the hoop. In the lower ends of these tubes are holes in which the pivots of
the axis revolve. From the end of the axis which is next the car, proceeds a
shaft of steel, connecting the screw with the pinion of a piece of spring
machinery fixed in the car. By the operation of this spring, the screw is
made to revolve with great rapidity, communicating a progressive motion to
the whole. By means of the rudder, the machine was readily turned in any
direction. The spring was of great power, compared with its dimensions,
being capable of raising forty-five pounds upon a barrel of four inches
diameter, after the first turn, and gradually increasing as it was wound up. It
weighed, altogether, eight pounds six ounces. The rudder was a light frame
of cane covered with silk, shaped somewhat like a battle-door, and was
about three feet long, and at the widest, one foot. Its weight was about two

ounces. It could be turned flat, and directed upwards or downwards, as well
as to the right or left; and thus enabled the æronaut to transfer the resistance
of the air which in an inclined position it must generate in its passage, to
any side upon which he might desire to act; thus determining the balloon in
the opposite direction.
“This model (which, through want of time, we have necessarily described
in an imperfect manner,) was put in action at the Adelaide Gallery, where it
accomplished a velocity of five miles per hour; although, strange to say, it
excited very little interest in comparison with the previous complex
machine of Mr. Henson—so resolute is the world to despise anything which
carries with it an air of simplicity. To accomplish the great desideratum of
ærial navigation, it was very generally supposed that some exceedingly
complicated application must be made of some unusually profound
principle in dynamics.
“So well satisfied, however, was Mr. Mason of the ultimate success of his
invention, that he determined to construct immediately, if possible, a
balloon of sufficient capacity to test the question by a voyage of some
extent—the original design being to cross the British Channel, as before, in
the Nassau balloon. To carry out his views, he solicited and obtained the
patronage of Sir Everard Bringhurst and Mr. Osborne, two gentlemen well
known for scientific acquirement, and especially for the interest they have
exhibited in the progress of ærostation. The project, at the desire of Mr.
Osborne, was kept a profound secret from the public—the only persons
entrusted with the design being those actually engaged in the construction
of the machine, which was built (under the superintendence of Mr. Mason,
Mr. Holland, Sir Everard Bringhurst, and Mr. Osborne,) at the seat of the
latter gentleman near Penstruthal, in Wales. Mr. Henson, accompanied by
his friend Mr. Ainsworth, was admitted to a private view of the balloon, on
Saturday last—when the two gentlemen made final arrangements to be
included in the adventure. We are not informed for what reason the two
seamen were also included in the party—but, in the course of a day or two,
we shall put our readers in possession of the minutest particulars respecting
this extraordinary voyage.
“The balloon is composed of silk, varnished with the liquid gum
caoutchouc. It is of vast dimensions, containing more than 40,000 cubic feet
of gas; but as coal gas was employed in place of the more expensive and

inconvenient hydrogen, the supporting power of the machine, when fully
inflated, and immediately after inflation, is not more than about 2500
pounds. The coal gas is not only much less costly, but is easily procured and
managed.
“For its introduction into common use for purposes of aerostation, we are
indebted to Mr. Charles Green. Up to his discovery, the process of inflation
was not only exceedingly expensive, but uncertain. Two, and even three
days, have frequently been wasted in futile attempts to procure a sufficiency
of hydrogen to fill a balloon, from which it had great tendency to escape,
owing to its extreme subtlety, and its affinity for the surrounding
atmosphere. In a balloon sufficiently perfect to retain its contents of coal-
gas unaltered, in quantity or amount, for six months, an equal quantity of
hydrogen could not be maintained in equal purity for six weeks.
“The supporting power being estimated at 2500 pounds, and the united
weights of the party amounting only to about 1200, there was left a surplus
of 1300, of which again 1200 was exhausted by ballast, arranged in bags of
different sizes, with their respective weights marked upon them—by
cordage, barometers, telescopes, barrels containing provision for a
fortnight, water-casks, cloaks, carpet-bags, and various other indispensable
matters, including a coffee-warmer, contrived for warming coffee by means
of slack-lime, so as to dispense altogether with fire, if it should be judged
prudent to do so. All these articles, with the exception of the ballast, and a
few trifles, were suspended from the hoop overhead. The car is much
smaller and lighter, in proportion, than the one appended to the model. It is
formed of a light wicker, and is wonderfully strong, for so frail looking a
machine. Its rim is about four feet deep. The rudder is also very much
larger, in proportion, than that of the model; and the screw is considerably
smaller. The balloon is furnished besides with a grapnel, and a guide-rope;
which latter is of the most indispensable importance. A few words, in
explanation, will here be necessary for such of our readers as are not
conversant with the details of aerostation.
“As soon as the balloon quits the earth, it is subjected to the influence of
many circumstances tending to create a difference in its weight; augmenting
or diminishing its ascending power. For example, there may be a deposition
of dew upon the silk, to the extent, even, of several hundred pounds; ballast
has then to be thrown out, or the machine may descend. This ballast being

discarded, and a clear sunshine evaporating the dew, and at the same time
expanding the gas in the silk, the whole will again rapidly ascend. To check
this ascent, the only recourse is, (or rather was, until Mr. Green’s invention
of the guide-rope,) the permission of the escape of gas from the valve; but,
in the loss of gas, is a proportionate general loss of ascending power; so
that, in a comparatively brief period, the best-constructed balloon must
necessarily exhaust all its resources, and come to the earth. This was the
great obstacle to voyages of length.
“The guide-rope remedies the difficulty in the simplest manner
conceivable. It is merely a very long rope which is suffered to trail from the
car, and the effect of which is to prevent the balloon from changing its level
in any material degree. If, for example, there should be a deposition of
moisture upon the silk, and the machine begins to descend in consequence,
there will be no necessity for discharging ballast to remedy the increase of
weight, for it is remedied, or counteracted, in an exactly just proportion, by
the deposit on the ground of just so much of the end of the rope as is
necessary. If, on the other hand, any circumstances should cause undue
levity, and consequent ascent, this levity is immediately counteracted by the
additional weight of rope upraised from the earth. Thus, the balloon can
neither ascend or descend, except within very narrow limits, and its
resources, either in gas or ballast, remain comparatively unimpaired. When
passing over an expanse of water, it becomes necessary to employ small
kegs of copper or wood, filled with liquid ballast of a lighter nature than
water. These float, and serve all the purposes of a mere rope on land.
Another most important office of the guide-rope, is to point out the
direction of the balloon. The rope drags, either on land or sea, while the
balloon is free; the latter, consequently, is always in advance, when any
progress whatever is made: a comparison, therefore, by means of the
compass, of the relative positions of the two objects, will always indicate
the course. In the same way, the angle formed by the rope with the vertical
axis of the machine, indicates the velocity. When there is no angle—in other
words, when the rope hangs perpendicularly, the whole apparatus is
stationary; but the larger the angle, that is to say, the farther the balloon
precedes the end of the rope, the greater the velocity; and the converse.
“As the original design was to cross the British Channel, and alight as
near Paris as possible, the voyagers had taken the precaution to prepare
themselves with passports directed to all parts of the Continent, specifying

the nature of the expedition, as in the case of the Nassau voyage, and
entitling the adventurers to exemption from the usual formalities of office:
unexpected events, however, rendered these passports superfluous.
“The inflation was commenced very quietly at daybreak, on Saturday
morning, the 6th instant, in the Court-Yard of Weal-Vor House, Mr.
Osborne’s seat, about a mile from Penstruthal, in North Wales; and at 7
minutes past 11, every thing being ready for departure, the balloon was set
free, rising gently but steadily, in a direction nearly South; no use being
made, for the first half hour, of either the screw or the rudder. We proceed
now with the journal, as transcribed by Mr. Forsyth from the joint MSS. of
Mr. Monck Mason, and Mr. Ainsworth. The body of the journal, as given, is
in the hand-writing of Mr. Mason, and a P. S. is appended, each day, by Mr.
Ainsworth, who has in preparation, and will shortly give the public a more
minute, and no doubt, a thrillingly interesting account of the voyage.
“THE JOURNAL.
“Saturday, April the 6th.—Every preparation likely to embarrass us,
having been made over night, we commenced the inflation this morning at
daybreak; but owing to a thick fog, which encumbered the folds of the silk
and rendered it unmanageable, we did not get through before nearly eleven
o’clock. Cut loose, then, in high spirits, and rose gently but steadily, with a
light breeze at North, which bore us in the direction of the British Channel.
Found the ascending force greater than we had expected; and as we arose
higher and so got clear of the cliffs, and more in the sun’s rays, our ascent
became very rapid. I did not wish, however, to lose gas at so early a period
of the adventure, and so concluded to ascend for the present. We soon ran
out our guide-rope; but even when we had raised it clear of the earth, we
still went up very rapidly. The balloon was unusually steady, and looked
beautifully. In about ten minutes after starting, the barometer indicated an
altitude of 15,000 feet. The weather was remarkably fine, and the view of
the subjacent country—a most romantic one when seen from any point,—
was now especially sublime. The numerous deep gorges presented the
appearance of lakes, on account of the dense vapors with which they were
filled, and the pinnacles and crags to the South East, piled in inextricable
confusion, resembling nothing so much as the giant cities of eastern fable.
We were rapidly approaching the mountains in the South; but our elevation
was more than sufficient to enable us to pass them in safety. In a few

minutes we soared over them in fine style; and Mr. Ainsworth, with the
seamen, was surprised at their apparent want of altitude when viewed from
the car, the tendency of great elevation in a balloon being to reduce
inequalities of the surface below, to nearly a dead level. At half-past eleven
still proceeding nearly South, we obtained our first view of the Bristol
Channel; and, in fifteen minutes afterward, the line of breakers on the coast
appeared immediately beneath us, and we were fairly out at sea. We now
resolved to let off enough gas to bring our guide-rope, with the buoys
affixed, into the water. This was immediately done, and we commenced a
gradual descent. In about twenty minutes our first buoy dipped, and at the
touch of the second soon afterwards, we remained stationary as to elevation.
We were all now anxious to test the efficiency of the rudder and screw, and
we put them both into requisition forthwith, for the purpose of altering our
direction more to the eastward, and in a line for Paris. By means of the
rudder we instantly effected the necessary change of direction, and our
course was brought nearly at right angles to that of the wind; when we set in
motion the spring of the screw, and were rejoiced to find it propel us readily
as desired. Upon this we gave nine hearty cheers, and dropped in the sea a
bottle, enclosing a slip of parchment with a brief account of the principle of
the invention. Hardly, however, had we done with our rejoicings, when an
unforeseen accident occurred which discouraged us in no little degree. The
steel rod connecting the spring with the propeller was suddenly jerked out
of place, at the car end, (by a swaying of the car through some movement of
one of the two seamen we had taken up,) and in an instant hung dangling
out of reach, from the pivot of the axis of the screw. While we were
endeavoring to regain it, our attention being completely absorbed, we
became involved in a strong current of wind from the East, which bore us,
with rapidly increasing force, towards the Atlantic. We soon found
ourselves driving out to sea at the rate of not less, certainly, than fifty or
sixty miles an hour, so that we came up with Cape Clear, at some forty
miles to our North, before we had secured the rod, and had time to think
what we were about. It was now that Mr. Ainsworth made an extraordinary,
but to my fancy, a by no means unreasonable or chimerical proposition, in
which he was instantly seconded by Mr. Holland—viz.: that we should take
advantage of the strong gale which bore us on, and in place of beating back
to Paris, make an attempt to reach the coast of North America. After slight
reflection I gave a willing assent to this bold proposition, which (strange to

say) met with objection from the two seamen only. As the stronger party,
however, we overruled their fears, and kept resolutely upon our course. We
steered due West; but as the trailing of the buoys materially impeded our
progress, and we had the balloon abundantly at command, either for ascent
or descent, we first threw out fifty pounds of ballast, and then wound up (by
means of a windlass) so much of the rope as brought it quite clear of the
sea. We perceived the effect of this manoeuvre immediately, in a vastly
increased rate of progress; and, as the gale freshened, we flew with a
velocity nearly inconceivable; the guide-rope flying out behind the car, like
a streamer from a vessel. It is needless to say that a very short time sufficed
us to lose sight of the coast. We passed over innumerable vessels of all
kinds, a few of which were endeavoring to beat up, but the most of them
lying to. We occasioned the greatest excitement on board all—an
excitement greatly relished by ourselves, and especially by our two men,
who, now under the influence of a dram of Geneva, seemed resolved to give
all scruple, or fear, to the wind. Many of the vessels fired signal guns; and
in all we were saluted with loud cheers (which we heard with surprising
distinctness) and the waving of caps and handkerchiefs. We kept on in this
manner throughout the day, with no material incident, and, as the shades of
night closed around us, we made a rough estimate of the distance traversed.
It could not have been less than five hundred miles, and was probably much
more. The propeller was kept in constant operation, and, no doubt, aided
our progress materially. As the sun went down, the gale freshened into an
absolute hurricane, and the ocean beneath was clearly visible on account of
its phosphorescence. The wind was from the East all night, and gave us the
brightest omen of success. We suffered no little from cold, and the
dampness of the atmosphere was most unpleasant; but the ample space in
the car enabled us to lie down, and by means of cloaks and a few blankets,
we did sufficiently well.
“P.S. (by Mr. Ainsworth.) The last nine hours have been unquestionably
the most exciting of my life. I can conceive nothing more sublimating than
the strange peril and novelty of an adventure such as this. May God grant
that we succeed! I ask not success for mere safety to my insignificant
person, but for the sake of human knowledge and—for the vastness of the
triumph. And yet the feat is only so evidently feasible that the sole wonder
is why men have scrupled to attempt it before. One single gale such as now
befriends us—let such a tempest whirl forward a balloon for four or five

days (these gales often last longer) and the voyager will be easily borne, in
that period, from coast to coast. In view of such a gale the broad Atlantic
becomes a mere lake. I am more struck, just now, with the supreme silence
which reigns in the sea beneath us, notwithstanding its agitation, than with
any other phenomenon presenting itself. The waters give up no voice to the
heavens. The immense flaming ocean writhes and is tortured
uncomplainingly. The mountainous surges suggest the idea of innumerable
dumb gigantic fiends struggling in impotent agony. In a night such as is this
to me, a man lives—lives a whole century of ordinary life—nor would I
forego this rapturous delight for that of a whole century of ordinary
existence.
“Sunday, the seventh. [Mr. Mason’s MS.] This morning the gale, by 10,
had subsided to an eight or nine—knot breeze, (for a vessel at sea,) and
bears us, perhaps, thirty miles per hour, or more. It has veered, however,
very considerably to the north; and now, at sundown, we are holding our
course due west, principally by the screw and rudder, which answer their
purposes to admiration. I regard the project as thoroughly successful, and
the easy navigation of the air in any direction (not exactly in the teeth of a
gale) as no longer problematical. We could not have made head against the
strong wind of yesterday; but, by ascending, we might have got out of its
influence, if requisite. Against a pretty stiff breeze, I feel convinced, we can
make our way with the propeller. At noon, to-day, ascended to an elevation
of nearly 25,000 feet, by discharging ballast. Did this to search for a more
direct current, but found none so favorable as the one we are now in. We
have an abundance of gas to take us across this small pond, even should the
voyage last three weeks. I have not the slightest fear for the result. The
difficulty has been strangely exaggerated and misapprehended. I can choose
my current, and should I find all currents against me, I can make very
tolerable headway with the propeller. We have had no incidents worth
recording. The night promises fair.
P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] I have little to record, except the fact (to me
quite a surprising one) that, at an elevation equal to that of Cotopaxi, I
experienced neither very intense cold, nor headache, nor difficulty of
breathing; neither, I find, did Mr. Mason, nor Mr. Holland, nor Sir Everard.
Mr. Osborne complained of constriction of the chest—but this soon wore
off. We have flown at a great rate during the day, and we must be more than
half way across the Atlantic. We have passed over some twenty or thirty

vessels of various kinds, and all seem to be delightfully astonished.
Crossing the ocean in a balloon is not so difficult a feat after all. Omne
ignotum pro magnifico. Mem: at 25,000 feet elevation the sky appears
nearly black, and the stars are distinctly visible; while the sea does not seem
convex (as one might suppose) but absolutely and most unequivocally
concave.(*1)
“Monday, the 8th. [Mr. Mason’s MS.] This morning we had again some
little trouble with the rod of the propeller, which must be entirely
remodelled, for fear of serious accident—I mean the steel rod—not the
vanes. The latter could not be improved. The wind has been blowing
steadily and strongly from the north-east all day and so far fortune seems
bent upon favoring us. Just before day, we were all somewhat alarmed at
some odd noises and concussions in the balloon, accompanied with the
apparent rapid subsidence of the whole machine. These phenomena were
occasioned by the expansion of the gas, through increase of heat in the
atmosphere, and the consequent disruption of the minute particles of ice
with which the network had become encrusted during the night. Threw
down several bottles to the vessels below. Saw one of them picked up by a
large ship—seemingly one of the New York line packets. Endeavored to
make out her name, but could not be sure of it. Mr. Osborne’s telescope
made it out something like “Atalanta.” It is now 12, at night, and we are
still going nearly west, at a rapid pace. The sea is peculiarly
phosphorescent.
“P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] It is now 2, A.M., and nearly calm, as well as I
can judge—but it is very difficult to determine this point, since we move
with the air so completely. I have not slept since quitting Wheal-Vor, but
can stand it no longer, and must take a nap. We cannot be far from the
American coast.
“Tuesday, the 9th. [Mr. Ainsworth’s MS.] One, P.M. We are in full view of
the low coast of South Carolina. The great problem is accomplished. We
have crossed the Atlantic—fairly and easily crossed it in a balloon! God be
praised! Who shall say that anything is impossible hereafter?”
The Journal here ceases. Some particulars of the descent were
communicated, however, by Mr. Ainsworth to Mr. Forsyth. It was nearly
dead calm when the voyagers first came in view of the coast, which was
immediately recognized by both the seamen, and by Mr. Osborne. The latter

gentleman having acquaintances at Fort Moultrie, it was immediately
resolved to descend in its vicinity. The balloon was brought over the beach
(the tide being out and the sand hard, smooth, and admirably adapted for a
descent,) and the grapnel let go, which took firm hold at once. The
inhabitants of the island, and of the fort, thronged out, of course, to see the
balloon; but it was with the greatest difficulty that any one could be made to
credit the actual voyage—the crossing of the Atlantic. The grapnel caught at
2, P.M., precisely; and thus the whole voyage was completed in seventy-
five hours; or rather less, counting from shore to shore. No serious accident
occurred. No real danger was at any time apprehended. The balloon was
exhausted and secured without trouble; and when the MS. from which this
narrative is compiled was despatched from Charleston, the party were still
at Fort Moultrie. Their farther intentions were not ascertained; but we can
safely promise our readers some additional information either on Monday
or in the course of the next day, at farthest.
This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting, and the
most important undertaking, ever accomplished or even attempted by man.
What magnificent events may ensue, it would be useless now to think of
determining.
(*1) Note.—Mr. Ainsworth has not attempted to account for this
phenomenon, which, however, is quite susceptible of explanation. A line
dropped from an elevation of 25,000 feet, perpendicularly to the surface of
the earth (or sea), would form the perpendicular of a right-angled triangle,
of which the base would extend from the right angle to the horizon, and the
hypothenuse from the horizon to the balloon. But the 25,000 feet of altitude
is little or nothing, in comparison with the extent of the prospect. In other
words, the base and hypothenuse of the supposed triangle would be so long
when compared with the perpendicular, that the two former may be
regarded as nearly parallel. In this manner the horizon of the æronaut would
appear to be on a level with the car. But, as the point immediately beneath
him seems, and is, at a great distance below him, it seems, of course, also,
at a great distance below the horizon. Hence the impression of concavity;
and this impression must remain, until the elevation shall bear so great a
proportion to the extent of prospect, that the apparent parallelism of the
base and hypothenuse disappears—when the earth’s real convexity must
become apparent.

MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
Qui n’a plus qu’un moment a vivre
N’a plus rien a dissimuler.

—Quinault—Atys.

Of my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage and length
of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from the other.
Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common order, and a
contemplative turn of mind enabled me to methodize the stores which early
study very diligently garnered up.—Beyond all things, the study of the
German moralists gave me great delight; not from any ill-advised
admiration of their eloquent madness, but from the ease with which my
habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect their falsities. I have often been
reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has
been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at
all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical
philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this
age—I mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of
such reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole, no person
could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of
truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise
thus much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather
the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to
which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18— , from
the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java, on a voyage to
the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as passenger—having no other
inducement than a kind of nervous restlessness which haunted me as a
fiend.

Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons, copper-
fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted with
cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on board coir,
jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The stowage was
clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood
along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguile the
monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some of the small
grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular, isolated
cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well for its color, as from its being
the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia. I watched it
attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to the eastward and
westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor, and looking
like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by
the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea.
The latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more than
usually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving
the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably
hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising from
heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, an more entire
calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the
poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the
finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration.
However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and
as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and
the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of
Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I went below—not
without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed, every appearance warranted me
in apprehending a Simoom. I told the captain my fears; but he paid no
attention to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My
uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I
went upon deck. As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-
ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the
rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I
found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of

foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft,
swept the entire decks from stem to stern.
The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the salvation of
the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her masts had gone by
the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and, staggering
awhile beneath the immense pressure of the tempest, finally righted.
By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say. Stunned by
the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery, jammed in between
the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my feet, and
looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck with the idea of our being
among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the
whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were
engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped
with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with all my
strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we
were the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck, with the exception of
ourselves, had been swept overboard;—the captain and mates must have
perished as they slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without
assistance, we could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our
exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectation of going
down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the first breath
of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We
scudded with frightful velocity before the sea, and the water made clear
breaches over us. The frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively,
and, in almost every respect, we had received considerable injury; but to
our extreme joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no
great shifting of our ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown
over, and we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but
we looked forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that, in
our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell
which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no means
likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights—during which
our only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great
difficulty from the forecastle—the hulk flew at a rate defying computation,
before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first
violence of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had
before encountered. Our course for the first four days was, with trifling

variations, S.E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of New
Holland. On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the wind had
hauled round a point more to the northward. The sun arose with a sickly
yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the horizon—
emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds apparent, yet the wind was
upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as
nearly as we could guess, our attention was again arrested by the
appearance of the sun. It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and
sullen glow without reflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before
sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as if
hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim, sliver-
like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.
We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day—that day to me has not
yet arrived—to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforward we were
enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object at
twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us, all
unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been
accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that, although the tempest
continued to rage with unabated violence, there was no longer to be
discovered the usual appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto
attended us. All around were horror, and thick gloom, and a black
sweltering desert of ebony. Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the
spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder.
We neglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless, and securing
ourselves, as well as possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast, looked out
bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means of calculating time, nor
could we form any guess of our situation. We were, however, well aware of
having made farther to the southward than any previous navigators, and felt
great amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice. In the
meantime every moment threatened to be our last—every mountainous
billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed anything I had
imagined possible, and that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My
companion spoke of the lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the
excellent qualities of our ship; but I could not help feeling the utter
hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death
which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of
way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more

dismally appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond
the albatross—at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into
some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the
slumbers of the kraken.
We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick scream
from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. “See! see!” cried he,
shrieking in my ears, “Almighty God! see! see!” As he spoke, I became
aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down the sides of
the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our deck.
Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the current of
my blood. At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of
the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of, perhaps, four thousand
tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave more than a hundred
times her own altitude, her apparent size exceeded that of any ship of the
line or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge hull was of a deep dingy black,
unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship. A single row of brass
cannon protruded from her open ports, and dashed from their polished
surfaces the fires of innumerable battle-lanterns, which swung to and fro
about her rigging. But what mainly inspired us with horror and
astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of sail in the very teeth of
that supernatural sea, and of that ungovernable hurricane. When we first
discovered her, her bows were alone to be seen, as she rose slowly from the
dim and horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she
paused upon the giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own
sublimity, then trembled and tottered, and—came down.
At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over my
spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly the ruin that was
to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasing from her struggles,
and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of the descending mass
struck her, consequently, in that portion of her frame which was already
under water, and the inevitable result was to hurl me, with irresistible
violence, upon the rigging of the stranger.
As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about; and to the confusion
ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew. With little
difficulty I made my way unperceived to the main hatchway, which was
partially open, and soon found an opportunity of secreting myself in the

hold. Why I did so I can hardly tell. An indefinite sense of awe, which at
first sight of the navigators of the ship had taken hold of my mind, was
perhaps the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust myself
with a race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I had taken, so
many points of vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought
proper to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small
portion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner as to afford me a
convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.
I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forced me
to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a feeble
and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity of
observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of great
age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load of years, and his entire
frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself, in a low broken
tone, some words of a language which I could not understand, and groped
in a corner among a pile of singular-looking instruments, and decayed
charts of navigation. His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of
second childhood, and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on
deck, and I saw him no more.

A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul —a
sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of bygone
times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will offer me no
key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter consideration is an evil. I
shall never—I know that I shall never—be satisfied with regard to the
nature of my conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful that these conceptions are
indefinite, since they have their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new
sense—a new entity is added to my soul.

It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and the rays of
my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus. Incomprehensible men!
Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I cannot divine, they pass me by

unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly on my part, for the people will not
see. It was but just now that I passed directly before the eyes of the mate; it
was no long while ago that I ventured into the captain’s own private cabin,
and took thence the materials with which I write, and have written. I shall
from time to time continue this journal. It is true that I may not find an
opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will not fall to make the
endeavour. At the last moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it
within the sea.

An incident has occurred which has given me new room for meditation.
Are such things the operation of ungoverned chance? I had ventured upon
deck and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice, among a pile
of ratlin-stuff and old sails in the bottom of the yawl. While musing upon
the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubed with a tar-brush the edges
of a neatly-folded studding-sail which lay near me on a barrel. The
studding-sail is now bent upon the ship, and the thoughtless touches of the
brush are spread out into the word DISCOVERY.
I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the vessel.
Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her rigging, build,
and general equipment, all negative a supposition of this kind. What she is
not, I can easily perceive—what she is I fear it is impossible to say. I know
not how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange model and singular cast of
spars, her huge size and overgrown suits of canvas, her severely simple bow
and antiquated stern, there will occasionally flash across my mind a
sensation of familiar things, and there is always mixed up with such
indistinct shadows of recollection, an unaccountable memory of old foreign
chronicles and ages long ago.

I have been looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built of a material to
which I am a stranger. There is a peculiar character about the wood which
strikes me as rendering it unfit for the purpose to which it has been applied.
I mean its extreme porousness, considered independently by the worm-

eaten condition which is a consequence of navigation in these seas, and
apart from the rottenness attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an
observation somewhat over-curious, but this wood would have every
characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak were distended by any
unnatural means.
In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old weather-
beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. “It is as sure,” he
was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of his veracity, “as sure as
there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in bulk like the living body of
the seaman.”

About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of the
crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in the
very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like
the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the marks of
a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity; their shoulders were
bent double with decrepitude; their shrivelled skins rattled in the wind; their
voices were low, tremulous and broken; their eyes glistened with the rheum
of years; and their gray hairs streamed terribly in the tempest. Around them,
on every part of the deck, lay scattered mathematical instruments of the
most quaint and obsolete construction.

I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. From that
period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her terrific
course due south, with every rag of canvas packed upon her, from her trucks
to her lower studding-sail booms, and rolling every moment her top-gallant
yard-arms into the most appalling hell of water which it can enter into the
mind of a man to imagine. I have just left the deck, where I find it
impossible to maintain a footing, although the crew seem to experience
little inconvenience. It appears to me a miracle of miracles that our
enormous bulk is not swallowed up at once and forever. We are surely
doomed to hover continually upon the brink of eternity, without taking a

final plunge into the abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendous
than any I have ever seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea-
gull; and the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the
deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to destroy. I
am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only natural cause which
can account for such effect. I must suppose the ship to be within the
influence of some strong current, or impetuous under-tow.

I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin—but, as I
expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there is, to a
casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or less than man,
still, a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the sensation
of wonder with which I regarded him. In stature he is nearly my own
height; that is, about five feet eight inches. He is of a well-knit and compact
frame of body, neither robust nor remarkably otherwise. But it is the
singularity of the expression which reigns upon the face—it is the intense,
the wonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme, which
excites within my spirit a sense—a sentiment ineffable. His forehead,
although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp of a myriad of
years. His gray hairs are records of the past, and his grayer eyes are sibyls
of the future. The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron-clasped
folios, and mouldering instruments of science, and obsolete long-forgotten
charts. His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he pored, with a
fiery unquiet eye, over a paper which I took to be a commission, and which,
at all events, bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as
did the first seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables of
a foreign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, his voice
seemed to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.

The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crew glide to
and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their eyes have an eager and
uneasy meaning; and when their fingers fall athwart my path in the wild

glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before, although I have
been all my life a dealer in antiquities, and have imbibed the shadows of
fallen columns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my very soul
has become a ruin.

When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions. If I
trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I not stand aghast
at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea of which the words
tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective? All in the immediate
vicinity of the ship is the blackness of eternal night, and a chaos of foamless
water; but, about a league on either side of us, may be seen, indistinctly and
at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice, towering away into the desolate
sky, and looking like the walls of the universe.

As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current—if that appellation can
properly be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by the white ice,
thunders on to the southward with a velocity like the headlong dashing of a
cataract.

To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly impossible;
yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful regions,
predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me to the most
hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some
exciting knowledge—some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment
is destruction. Perhaps this current leads us to the southern pole itself. It
must be confessed that a supposition apparently so wild has every
probability in its favor.

The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there is
upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hope than
of the apathy of despair.
In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and, as we carry a crowd of
canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea! Oh, horror upon
horror!—the ice opens suddenly to the right, and to the left, and we are
whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round the
borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the
darkness and the distance. But little time will be left me to ponder upon my
destiny! The circles rapidly grow small—we are plunging madly within the
grasp of the whirlpool—and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering
of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering—oh God! and—going down.
NOTE.—The “MS. Found in a Bottle,” was originally published in 1831,
and it was not until many years afterwards that I became acquainted with
the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean is represented as rushing, by four
mouths, into the (northern) Polar Gulf, to be absorbed into the bowels of the
earth; the Pole itself being represented by a black rock, towering to a
prodigious height.

THE OVAL PORTRAIT

The château into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance,
rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night
in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur
which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in
the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and
very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and
least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the
building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were
hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial
trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern
paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which
depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many
nooks which the bizarre architecture of the château rendered necessary—in
these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep
interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room—since
it was already night—to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood
by the head of my bed, and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains
of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I
might resign myself, if not to sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation
of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been found
upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe them.
Long, long I read—and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and
gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The position of
the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty,
rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays
more fully upon the book.
But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of
the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche of the
room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-

posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the
portrait of a young girl just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the
painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first
apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids remained thus shut,
I ran over in my mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive
movement to gain time for thought—to make sure that my vision had not
deceived me—to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more
certain gaze. In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first
flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy
stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once into
waking life.
The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere
head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner;
much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and
even the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet
deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole. The frame was
oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing
could be more admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been
neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the
countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least
of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had
mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at once that the
peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of the frame, must have
instantly dispelled such idea—must have prevented even its momentary
entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for an hour
perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait.
At length, satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the
bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute life-likeliness of
expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and
appalled me. With deep and reverent awe I replaced the candelabrum in its
former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut from view,
I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their
histories. Turning to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there
read the vague and quaint words which follow: