“What, sir?”
“No shadow, damme!”
“Did you mean to say —”
“Yes, sir, my soul is – hiccup! – humph! – yes, sir.”
“Did you not intend to assert —”
“My soul is – hiccup! – peculiarly qualified for – hiccup! – a —”
“What, sir?”
“Stew.”
“Ha!”
“Souflée.”
“Eh!”
“Fricassée.”
“Indeed!”
“Ragout and fricandeau – and see here, my good fellow! I’ll let you have it – hiccup! – a bargain.” Here the philosopher slapped his Majesty upon the back.
“Couldn’t think of such a thing[39],” said the latter calmly, at the same time rising from his seat. The metaphysician stared.
“Am supplied at present,” said his Majesty.
“Hiccup – e-h?” said the philosopher.
“Have no funds on hand.”
“What?”
“Besides, very unhandsome in me —”
“Sir!”
“To take advantage of —”
“Hiccup!”
“Your present disgusting and ungentlemanly situation.”
Here the visitor bowed and withdrew – in what manner could not precisely be ascertained – but in a well-concerted effort to discharge a bottle at “the villain,” the slender chain was severed that depended from the ceiling, and the metaphysician prostrated by the downfall of the lamp.
Morella
Αυτό χατ ‘αυτά μετ’ αύτοϋ μονοειδές α’ιεί φν
April 1835
With a feeling of deep but most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul, from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never known – but the fires were not of Eros – and bitter and tormenting to my eager spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning, or regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met: and Fate bound us together at the altar: and I never spoke of love, or thought of passion. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder. It is a happiness to dream.
Morella’s erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were of no common order – her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and in many matters became her pupil. I soon, however, found that Morella, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, laid before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reasons I could not imagine, were her favorite and constant study: and that in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example.
In all this, if I err not[41], my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by my imagination, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read, to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts. Feeling deeply persuaded of this I abandoned myself more implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with a bolder spirit into the intricacy of her studies. And then – then, when poring over forbidden pages I felt the spirit kindle within me, would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low singular words, whose strange meaning burnt themselves in upon my memory: and then hour after hour would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her thrilling voice, until at length its melody was tinged with terror and fell like a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly tones – and thus Joy suddenly faded into Horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon became Ge-Henna.
It is unnecessary to state the exact character of these disquisitions, which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The will Pantheism of Fitche[42] – the modified παλιyyεδιl[43] of the Pythagoreans – and, above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged by Schelling were generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That Identity which is not improperly called Personal, I think Mr. Locke[44] truly defines to consist in the sameness of a rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves – thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. But the Principium Individuationis – the notion of that Identity which at death is, or is not lost forever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest, not more from the mystical and exciting nature of its consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which Morella mentioned them.
But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife’s manner oppressed me like a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this but did not upbraid. She seemed conscious of my weakness, or my folly – and, smiling, called it Fate. She seemed also conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent: and one instant my nature melted into pity, but in the next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary and fathomless abyss.
Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morella’s decease? I did. But the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days – for many weeks and irksome months – until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious with delay, and with the heart of a fiend I cursed the days, and the hours, and the bitter moments which seemed to lengthen, and lengthen as her gentle life declined – like shadows in the dying of the day.
But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in Heaven, Morella called me to her side. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich October leaves of the forest a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen. As I came, she was murmuring in a low undertone, which trembled with fervor, the words of a Catholic hymn:
Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner’s sacrifice
Of fervent prayer, and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.
At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn.
In joy and wo, in good and ill,
Mother of God! be with me still.
When my hours flew gently by.
And no storms were in the sky,
My