Book Read Free

Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

Page 18

by Volume 01-05 (lit)


  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

  prµternatural. 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 a 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 _recherchΘ_

  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 air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or

  inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with

  the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its

  concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their

  arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation -

  all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of

  the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been

  played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and

  thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of

  purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of

  their own.

  The analytical power should not be confounded with 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 societyof 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 boastedto 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

  _ThΘΓtre des VariΘtΘs_."

  "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 _r⌠le_ of Xerxes, in CrΘbillon'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 bas
ket 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 _charlΓtanerie_ 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

 

‹ Prev