clear that I had wandered from the road to the village, and I had
thus good traveller's excuse to open the gate before me, and inquire
my way, at all events; so, without more ado, I proceeded.
The road, after passing the gate, seemed to lie upon a natural ledge,
sloping gradually down along the face of the north-eastern cliffs. It
led me on to the foot of the northern precipice, and thence over the
bridge, round by the eastern gable to the front door. In this
progress, I took notice that no sight of the out-houses could be
obtained.
As I turned the corner of the gable, the mastiff bounded towards me
in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole air of a tiger. I
held him out my hand, however, in token of amity -- and I never yet
knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to his courtesy. He
not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail, but absolutely offered
me his paw-afterward extending his civilities to Ponto.
As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick against the door,
which stood half open. Instantly a figure advanced to the threshold
-- that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of age -- slender,
or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium height. As she
approached, with a certain modest decision of step altogether
indescribable. I said to myself, "Surely here I have found the
perfection of natural, in contradistinction from artificial grace."
The second impression which she made on me, but by far the more vivid
of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So intense an expression of
romance, perhaps I should call it, or of unworldliness, as that which
gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so sunk into my heart of
hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of
the eye, wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the most
powerful, if not absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest
in woman. "Romance, provided my readers fully comprehended what I
would here imply by the word -- "romance" and "womanliness" seem to
me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman,
is simply her womanhood. The eyes of Annie (I heard some one from the
interior call her "Annie, darling!") were "spiritual grey;" her hair,
a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her.
At her most courteous of invitations, I entered -- passing first into
a tolerably wide vestibule. Having come mainly to observe, I took
notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a window, such as those
in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into the principal
room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me to see a small
apartment, just the size of the vestibule, arranged as a study, and
having a large bow window looking out to the north.
Passing into the parlor, I found myself with Mr. Landor -- for this,
I afterwards found, was his name. He was civil, even cordial in his
manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the
arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than
the personal appearance of the tenant.
The north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber, its door opened into
the parlor. West of this door was a single window, looking toward the
brook. At the west end of the parlor, were a fireplace, and a door
leading into the west wing -- probably a kitchen.
Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the
parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent texture -- a
white ground, spotted with small circular green figures. At the
windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet muslin: they were
tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps rather formally in
sharp, parallel plaits to the floor -- just to the floor. The walls
were prepared with a French paper of great delicacy, a silver ground,
with a faint green cord running zig-zag throughout. Its expanse was
relieved merely by three of Julien's exquisite lithographs a trois
crayons, fastened to the wall without frames. One of these drawings
was a scene of Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was
a "carnival piece," spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek
female head -- a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an expression
so provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my attention.
The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a few
chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or rather
"settee;" its material was plain maple painted a creamy white,
slightly interstriped with green; the seat of cane. The chairs and
table were "to match," but the forms of all had evidently been
designed by the same brain which planned "the grounds;" it is
impossible to conceive anything more graceful.
On the table were a few books, a large, square, crystal bottle of
some novel perfume, a plain ground -- glass astral (not solar) lamp
with an Italian shade, and a large vase of resplendently-blooming
flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous colours and delicate odour
formed the sole mere decoration of the apartment. The fire-place was
nearly filled with a vase of brilliant geranium. On a triangular
shelf in each angle of the room stood also a similar vase, varied
only as to its lovely contents. One or two smaller bouquets adorned
the mantel, and late violets clustered about the open windows.
It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give in detail, a
picture of Mr. Landor's residence -- as I found it. How he made it
what it was -- and why -- with some particulars of Mr. Landor himself
-- may, possibly form the subject of another article.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
WILLIAM WILSON
What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
_Chamberlayne's Pharronida._
LET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair
page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real
appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn
-- for the horror -- for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost
regions of the globe have not the indignant winds bruited its
unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most abandoned! --
to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its
flowers, to its golden aspirations? -- and a cloud, dense, dismal,
and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and
heaven?
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later
years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This epoch --
these later years -- took unto themselves a sudden elevation in
turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men
usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue
dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I
passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of
an Elah-Gabalus. What chance -- what one event brought this evil
thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the
shadow which foreruns him has thro
wn a softening influence over my
spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy
-- I had nearly said for the pity -- of my fellow men. I would fain
have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of
circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for
me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality
amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow -- what they
cannot refrain from allowing -- that, although temptation may have
erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted
before -- certainly, never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has
never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am
I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
of all sublunary visions?
I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable
temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my
earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the
family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly
developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude
to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed,
addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable
passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities akin
to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil
propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed
efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of course,
in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law;
and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings,
I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but
name, the master of my own actions.
My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a
large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and
where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a
dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At
this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its
deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand
shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep
hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with sullen and
sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the
fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.
It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner
experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its
concerns. Steeped in misery as I am -- misery, alas! only too real --
I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary,
in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly
trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy,
adventitious importance, as connected with a period and a locality
when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions of the
destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then
remember.
The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were
extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of
mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a
week -- once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers,
we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through some of the
neighbouring fields -- and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded
in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the
one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school
was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I
wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step
solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with
countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so
clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so
vast, -- -could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in
snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws
of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for
solution!
At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It
was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged
iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was
never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions
already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we
found a plenitude of mystery -- a world of matter for solemn remark,
or for more solemn meditation.
The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious
recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the
play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well
remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within
it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small
parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred
division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed -- such as a first
advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent
or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the
Christmas or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house! -- how quaint an old building was this! -- to me how
veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its
windings -- to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult,
at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two
stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there were
sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent.
Then the lateral branches were innumerable -- inconceivable -- and so
returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to
the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which
we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence
here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote
locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and
some eighteen or twenty other scholars.
The school-room was the largest in the house -- I could not help
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 68