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

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in stature and

  intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed,

  and I loved her with a love more fervent than I had believed it

  possible to feel for any denizen of earth.

  But, ere long the heaven of this pure affection became darkened, and

  gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it in clouds. I said the

  child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange, indeed,

  was her rapid increase in bodily size, but terrible, oh! terrible

  were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the

  development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily

  discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and

  faculties of the woman? when the lessons of experience fell from the

  lips of infancy? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I

  found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye? When, I say,

  all this beeame evident to my appalled senses, when I could no longer

  hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which

  trembled to receive it, is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a

  nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my

  thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories

  of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the world a

  being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and in the rigorous

  seclusion of my home, watched with an agonizing anxiety over all

  which concerned the beloved.

  And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her holy,

  and mild, and eloquent face, and poured over her maturing form, day

  after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to

  her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And hourly grew darker these

  shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more

  perplexing, and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her

  smile was like her mother's I could bear; but then I shuddered at its

  too perfect identity, that her eyes were like Morella's I could

  endure; but then they, too, often looked down into the depths of my

  soul with Morella's own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the

  contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair,

  and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the

  sad musical tones of her speech, and above all -- oh, above all, in

  the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and

  the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror, for a worm

  that would not die.

  Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter

  remained nameless upon the earth. "My child," and "my love," were the

  designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid

  seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name

  died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the

  daughter, it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period

  of her existence, the latter had received no impressions from the

  outward world, save such as might have been afforded by the narrow

  limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism

  presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a

  present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And at the

  baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise

  and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my own and foreign lands,

  came thronging to my lips, with many, many fair titles of the gentle,

  and the happy, and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the

  memory of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound,

  which in its very recollection was wont to make ebb the purple blood

  in torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the

  recesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the silence

  of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man the

  syllables -- Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of

  my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as starting at that

  scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to

  heaven, and falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral

  vault, responded -- "I am here!"

  Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds

  within my ear, and thence like molten lead rolled hissingly into my

  brain. Years -- years may pass away, but the memory of that epoch

  never. Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine -- but

  the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept

  no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from

  heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and its figures passed by

  me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only --

  Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my

  ears, and the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore -- Morella. But

  she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed

  with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the

  channel where I laid the second. -- Morella.

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS

  DURING the fall of the year 1827, while residing near

  Charlottesville, Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of Mr.

  Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every

  respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I found

  it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his physical

  relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory account.

  Whence he came, I never ascertained. Even about his age -- although I

  call him a young gentleman -- there was something which perplexed me

  in no little degree. He certainly seemed young -- and he made a point

  of speaking about his youth -- yet there were moments when I should

  have had little trouble in imagining him a hundred years of age. But

  in no regard was he more peculiar than in his personal appearance. He

  was singularly tall and thin. He stooped much. His limbs were

  exceedingly long and emaciated. His forehead was broad and low. His

  complexion was absolutely bloodless. His mouth was large and

  flexible, and his teeth were more wildly uneven, although sound, than

  I had ever before seen teeth in a human head. The expression of his

  smile, however, was by no means unpleasing, as might be supposed; but

  it had no variation whatever. It was one of profound melancholy -- of

  a phaseless and unceasing gloom. His eyes were abnormally large, and

  round like those of a cat. The pupils, too, upon any accession or

  diminution of light, underwent contraction or dilation, just such as

  is observed in the feline tribe. In moments of excitement the orbs

  grew bright to a degree almost inconceivable; seeming to emit

  luminous rays, not of a reflected but of an intrinsic lustre, as does

  a candle or the sun; yet their ordinary condition was so totally

  vapid, filmy, and dull as to convey the idea of the eyes of a

  long-interred corpse.

  These peculiariti
es of person appeared to cause him much annoyance,

  and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of half

  explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first heard it,

  impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew accustomed to it,

  and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his design rather to

  insinuate than directly to assert that, physically, he had not always

  been what he was -- that a long series of neuralgic attacks had

  reduced him from a condition of more than usual personal beauty, to

  that which I saw. For many years past he had been attended by a

  physician, named Templeton -- an old gentleman, perhaps seventy years

  of age -- whom he had first encountered at Saratoga, and from whose

  attention, while there, he either received, or fancied that he

  received, great benefit. The result was that Bedloe, who was wealthy,

  had made an arrangement with Dr. Templeton, by which the latter, in

  consideration of a liberal annual allowance, had consented to devote

  his time and medical experience exclusively to the care of the

  invalid.

  Doctor Templeton had been a traveller in his younger days, and at

  Paris had become a convert, in great measure, to the doctrines of

  Mesmer. It was altogether by means of magnetic remedies that he had

  succeeded in alleviating the acute pains of his patient; and this

  success had very naturally inspired the latter with a certain degree

  of confidence in the opinions from which the remedies had been

  educed. The Doctor, however, like all enthusiasts, had struggled hard

  to make a thorough convert of his pupil, and finally so far gained

  his point as to induce the sufferer to submit to numerous

  experiments. By a frequent repetition of these, a result had arisen,

  which of late days has become so common as to attract little or no

  attention, but which, at the period of which I write, had very rarely

  been known in America. I mean to say, that between Doctor Templeton

  and Bedloe there had grown up, little by little, a very distinct and

  strongly marked rapport, or magnetic relation. I am not prepared to

  assert, however, that this rapport extended beyond the limits of the

  simple sleep-producing power, but this power itself had attained

  great intensity. At the first attempt to induce the magnetic

  somnolency, the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth or sixth he

  succeeded very partially, and after long continued effort. Only at

  the twelfth was the triumph complete. After this the will of the

  patient succumbed rapidly to that of the physician, so that, when I

  first became acquainted with the two, sleep was brought about almost

  instantaneously by the mere volition of the operator, even when the

  invalid was unaware of his presence. It is only now, in the year

  1845, when similar miracles are witnessed daily by thousands, that I

  dare venture to record this apparent impossibility as a matter of

  serious fact.

  The temperature of Bedloe was, in the highest degree sensitive,

  excitable, enthusiastic. His imagination was singularly vigorous and

  creative; and no doubt it derived additional force from the habitual

  use of morphine, which he swallowed in great quantity, and without

  which he would have found it impossible to exist. It was his practice

  to take a very large dose of it immediately after breakfast each

  morning -- or, rather, immediately after a cup of strong coffee, for

  he ate nothing in the forenoon -- and then set forth alone, or

  attended only by a dog, upon a long ramble among the chain of wild

  and dreary hills that lie westward and southward of Charlottesville,

  and are there dignified by the title of the Ragged Mountains.

  Upon a dim, warm, misty day, toward the close of November, and during

  the strange interregnum of the seasons which in America is termed the

  Indian Summer, Mr. Bedloe departed as usual for the hills. The day

  passed, and still he did not return.

  About eight o'clock at night, having become seriously alarmed at his

  protracted absence, we were about setting out in search of him, when

  he unexpectedly made his appearance, in health no worse than usual,

  and in rather more than ordinary spirits. The account which he gave

  of his expedition, and of the events which had detained him, was a

  singular one indeed.

  "You will remember," said he, "that it was about nine in the morning

  when I left Charlottesville. I bent my steps immediately to the

  mountains, and, about ten, entered a gorge which was entirely new to

  me. I followed the windings of this pass with much interest. The

  scenery which presented itself on all sides, although scarcely

  entitled to be called grand, had about it an indescribable and to me

  a delicious aspect of dreary desolation. The solitude seemed

  absolutely virgin. I could not help believing that the green sods and

  the gray rocks upon which I trod had been trodden never before by the

  foot of a human being. So entirely secluded, and in fact

  inaccessible, except through a series of accidents, is the entrance

  of the ravine, that it is by no means impossible that I was indeed

  the first adventurer -- the very first and sole adventurer who had

  ever penetrated its recesses.

  "The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the

  Indian Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects, served,

  no doubt, to deepen the vague impressions which these objects

  created. So dense was this pleasant fog that I could at no time see

  more than a dozen yards of the path before me. This path was

  excessively sinuous, and as the sun could not be seen, I soon lost

  all idea of the direction in which I journeyed. In the meantime the

  morphine had its customary effect -- that of enduing all the external

  world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf -- in

  the hue of a blade of grass -- in the shape of a trefoil -- in the

  humming of a bee -- in the gleaming of a dew-drop -- in the breathing

  of the wind -- in the faint odors that came from the forest -- there

  came a whole universe of suggestion -- a gay and motley train of

  rhapsodical and immethodical thought.

  "Busied in this, I walked on for several hours, during which the mist

  deepened around me to so great an extent that at length I was reduced

  to an absolute groping of the way. And now an indescribable

  uneasiness possessed me -- a species of nervous hesitation and

  tremor. I feared to tread, lest I should be precipitated into some

  abyss. I remembered, too, strange stories told about these Ragged

  Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce races of men who tenanted their

  groves and caverns. A thousand vague fancies oppressed and

  disconcerted me- fancies the more distressing because vague. Very

  suddenly my attention was arrested by the loud beating of a drum.

  "My amazement was, of course, extreme. A drum in these hills was a

  thing unknown. I could not have been more surprised at the sound of

  the trump of the Archangel. But a new and still more astounding

  source of interest and perplexity arose. There came a wild rattling

  or jingling sou
nd, as if of a bunch of large keys, and upon the

  instant a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed past me with a

  shriek. He came so close to my person that I felt his hot breath upon

  my face. He bore in one hand an instrument composed of an assemblage

  of steel rings, and shook them vigorously as he ran. Scarcely had he

  disappeared in the mist before, panting after him, with open mouth

  and glaring eyes, there darted a huge beast. I could not be mistaken

  in its character. It was a hyena.

  "The sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my terrors

  -- for I now made sure that I dreamed, and endeavored to arouse

  myself to waking consciousness. I stepped boldly and briskly forward.

  I rubbed my eyes. I called aloud. I pinched my limbs. A small spring

  of water presented itself to my view, and here, stooping, I bathed my

  hands and my head and neck. This seemed to dissipate the equivocal

  sensations which had hitherto annoyed me. I arose, as I thought, a

  new man, and proceeded steadily and complacently on my unknown way.

  "At length, quite overcome by exertion, and by a certain oppressive

  closeness of the atmosphere, I seated myself beneath a tree.

  Presently there came a feeble gleam of sunshine, and the shadow of

  the leaves of the tree fell faintly but definitely upon the grass. At

  this shadow I gazed wonderingly for many minutes. Its character

  stupefied me with astonishment. I looked upward. The tree was a palm.

  "I now arose hurriedly, and in a state of fearful agitation -- for

  the fancy that I dreamed would serve me no longer. I saw -- I felt

  that I had perfect command of my senses -- and these senses now

  brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation. The heat

  became all at once intolerable. A strange odor loaded the breeze. A

  low, continuous murmur, like that arising from a full, but gently

  flowing river, came to my ears, intermingled with the peculiar hum of

  multitudinous human voices.

  "While I listened in an extremity of astonishment which I need not

  attempt to describe, a strong and brief gust of wind bore off the