CHAPTER XI - AMERICAN TALES OF TERROR.
In 1797 we are told that in America "the dairymaid and hired manno longer weep over the ballad of the cruel stepmother, but amusethemselves into an agreeable terror with the haunted houses andhobgoblins of Mrs. Radcliffe."[130] In _The Asylum, or Alonzo andMelissa_, published in Ploughkeepsie in 1811, the Gothic castle,with its full equipment of "explained ghosts," has been safelyconveyed across the Atlantic and set up in South Carolina; and_The Sicilian Pirate or the Pillar of Mystery: a TerrificRomance_, is, if we may trust its title, a hair-raising story, inthe style of "Monk" Lewis. Charles Brockden Brown, one of theearliest American novelists, prides himself on "calling forth thepassions and engaging the sympathy of the reader by means nothitherto employed by preceding authors," and speaks slightinglyof "puerile superstitions and exploded manners, Gothic castlesand chimeras."[131] Brown, who, like Shelley, was an enthusiasticadmirer of Godwin, sought to embody the theories of _PoliticalJustice_ in romances describing American life. The works, whichare said by Peacock to have taken deepest root in Shelley's mindand to have had the strongest influence in the formation of hischaracter, are Schiller's _Robbers_, Goethe's _Faust_, and fournovels--_Wieland, Ormond, Edgar Huntly_, and _Mervyn_--by C.B.Brown.[132]
Notwithstanding his lofty scorn for "Gothic castles andchimeras," even Brown himself condescended to take over from thedespised Mrs. Radcliffe the device of introducing apparentlysupernatural occurrences which are ultimately traced to naturalcauses. Like Mrs. Radcliffe he is at the mercy of a consciencewhich forbids him to thrust upon his readers spectres in which hehimself does not believe. He lacks Lewis's reckless mendacity. In_Wieland_ mysterious voices are heard at intervals by variousmembers of the family. To the hero, who has inherited a tendencyto religious fanaticism, they seem to be of divine origin, andwhen a voice bids him sacrifice those who are dearest to him, heobeys implicitly. He slays his wife and children, and his sisteronly escapes death by accident. After this catastrophe it provesthat the voices are produced by a skilled ventriloquist, Carwin,who has been admitted as an intimate friend of the family.Realising that this explanation may seem somewhat incredible,Brown seeks to make it appear more plausible by dwelling onWieland's abnormal state of mind, which would render himpeculiarly open to suggestion. Carwin's motive for thuspersecuting the Wieland family with his accursed gift is neversatisfactorily explained. His attitude is apparently that of anobtuse psychologist, who does not realise how serious theconsequence of his experiments may be.
In _Ormond_ and _Arthur Mervyn_, Brown describes the ravages ofthe yellow fever, of which he had personal experience in New Yorkand Philadelphia. The hero of _Ormond_ is a member of a societysimilar to that of the Illuminati, whose ceremonies and beliefsare set forth in _Horrid Mysteries_ (1796). The heroine,Constantia Dudley, who was Shelley's ideal feminine character, isthe embodiment of a theory, not a human being. She "walks alwaysin the light of reason," and decides that "to marry in extremeyouth would be a proof of pernicious and opprobrious temerity."The most memorable of Brown's novels is _Edgar Huntly_, whichbears an obvious resemblance to _Caleb Williams_. Like Godwin,Brown is deeply interested in morbid psychology. He findspleasure in tracing the workings of the brain in times ofemotional stress. The description of a sleepwalker digging agrave--a picture which captivated Shelley's imagination--is thestarting-point of the book. Edgar Huntly is impelled by curiosityto track him down. The somnambulist, Clithero, has, inself-defence, killed the twin-brother of his patron, Mrs,Lorimer, to whom he is deeply attached. Obsessed by the idea ofthe misery his deed will arouse in her mind, he attempts, in amoment of frenzy, to slay her. Believing that Mrs. Lorimer hasdied after hearing of the murder, Clithero flees to America. Whenhe disappears from his home, Huntly resolves to follow him, andin his search loses himself amid wild and desolate country. He isattacked by Indians, and after frightful adventures at lengthreaches his home. Clithero, whom he believed dead, has beenrescued. Mrs. Lorimer is still alive, and is married to a formerlover. This news, however, fails to restore Clithero, who, in afit of insanity, flings himself overboard when he is in a ship incharge of Huntly.
Brown's plots, which often open well, are spoilt by hasty,careless conclusions. It was his habit to write two or threenovels simultaneously. He was beset by the problem that exercisedeven Scott's brain: "The devil of a difficulty is that onepuzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then cannotdisentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying fiend they haveraised."
Brown takes very little trouble over his denouements, but hischaracters leave so faint an impression on our minds that we arenot deeply concerned in their fates. He is interested rather inconveying states of mind than in portraying character. We searchthe windings of Clithero's tormented conscience without realisinghim as an individual. The background of rugged scenery, though itis described in vague, turgid language, is more definite anddistinct than the human figures. We feel that Brown is strugglingthrough the obscurity of his Latinised diction to depictsomething he has actually seen. An air of dreadful solemnityhangs heavily over each story. Every being is in deadly earnest.Brown has Godwin's power of hypnotising us by his seriouspersistence, and of reducing us to a mood of awestruck gravity bythe sonority of his pompous periods.
From the oppressive gloom of Brown's "novels with a purpose," itis a relief to turn to the irresponsible gaiety of "GeoffreyCrayon," whose tales of terror, published some twenty yearslater, are usually fashioned in a jovial spirit, only faintlytinged with awe and dread. In _The Spectre Bridegroom_, includedin _The Sketch Book_ (1820), the ghostly rider of Buerger'sfar-famed ballad is set amid new surroundings and pleasantlyturned to ridicule. The "supernatural" wooer, who now and againarouses a genuine thrill of fear, is merely playing a practicaljoke on the princess by impersonating the dead bridegroom, andall ends happily. The story of the Headless Horseman of SleepyHollow is set against so picturesque a background that we arealmost inclined to quarrel with those who laughed and said thatIchabod Crane was still alive, and that Bram Jones, the lovelyKatrina's bridegroom, knew more of the spectre than he chose totell. The drowsy atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow makes us see visionsand dream dreams. The group of "Strange Stories by a NervousGentleman" in _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824) prove that WashingtonIrving was well versed in ghostly lore. He, as well as any, cancall spirits from the vasty deep, but, when they appear in answerto his summons, he can seldom refrain from receiving them in ajocose, irreverent mood, ill befitting the solemn, dignifiedspectre of a German legend. Even the highly qualified,irrepressibly loquacious ghost of Lewis Carroll's_Phantasmagoria_ would have resented his genial familiarity. Thestrange stories are told at a hunting-party in a country-house, acheerful, comfortable background for ghost stories. A hoary,one-eyed gentleman, "the whole side of whose head was dilapidatedand seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted," setsthe ball rolling with the old story of a spectre who glides intothe room, wringing her hands, and is later identified, likeScott's Lady in the Sacque, by her resemblance to an ancestralportrait in the gallery. The "knowing" gentleman tells of apicture that winked in a startling and alarming fashion, andimmediately explains away this phenomenon by the presence of athief who has cut a spy-hole in the canvas. _The Bold Dragoon_ isa spirited, riotous nightmare in which the furniture dances tothe music of the bellows played by an uncanny musician in a longflannel gown and a nightcap. The _Story of the German Student_ isin a different key. Here Irving strikes a note of real horror.The student falls in love with an imaginary lady, woven out ofhis dreams. He finds her in distress one night in the streets ofParis, takes her home, only to find her a corpse in the morning.A police-officer informs him that the lady was guillotined theday before, and the student discovers the truth of this statementwhen he unrolls a bandage and her head falls to the floor. Theyoung man loses his reason, and is tormented by the belief thatan evil spirit has reanimated a dead body to ensnare him. Themorning after the recital of this gruesome story, the host readsaloud to his guests a manuscript entr
usted to him, together witha portrait, by a young Italian. This youth, it chances, learntpainting with a monk, who, as a penance, drew pictures, ormodelled waxen images, representing death and corruption, adetail which reminds us of what was concealed by the Black Veilin _Udolpho_. He later falls in love with his model, Bianca, who,during his absence abroad, marries his friend Filippo. In ajealous rage the young Italian slays his rival, and isunceasingly haunted by his phantom. Washington Irving has nodesire to endure for long the atmosphere of mystery and horrorhis story has created, and quickly relieves the tension by areturn to ordinary life. The host promises to show the picture,which is said to affect all beholders in an extraordinaryfashion, to each of his guests in turn. They all professthemselves remarkably affected by it, until the host confessesthat he has too sincere a regard for the feelings of the youngItalian to reveal the actual picture to any of them; With thismoment of disillusionment the strange stories come to an end. Thetitle, _Tales of a Traveller_, under which Irving placed histales of terror, indicates the mood in which he fashioned them.He regarded them much as he would regard the wonderful adventuresof Baron Munchausen. They were to be taken, like one of Dr.Marigold's prescriptions, with a grain of salt. The idea ofblending levity with horror, suggested perhaps by Germaninfluence, was very popular in England and France at this period.Balzac's _L'Auberge Rouge_ and _L'Elixir de la Longue Vie_ arewritten in a similar mood.
It is not always the boldest and most adventurous beings whoelect to dwell amid "calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire."The "virtuous mind," whom supernatural horrors may "startle wellbut not astound," sometimes finds a melancholy pleasure inbeguiling weaker mortals into haunted ruins to watch their firmnerves tremble. Sometimes too, though a man be wholly innocent ofthe desire to alarm, he is led astray, whether he will or not,among the terrors of the invisible world. Grey ghosts steal intohis imagination unawares. It was so that they came to NathanielHawthorne, who speaks sorrowfully of "gaily dressed fantasiesturning to ghostly and black-clad images of themselves." He wouldgladly have written a "sunshiny" book, but was capriciously fatedto live ever in the twilight, haunted by spectres and by "darkideas." He fashions his tales of terror delicately andreluctantly, not riotously and shamelessly like Lewis andMaturin.
An innate reticence and shyness of temper held Hawthorne, as ifby a spell, somewhat aloof from life, and no one realised moreclearly than he the limitations that his detachment from humanityimposed upon his art.
Of _Twice-Told Tales_ he writes regretfully:
"They have the pale tint of flowers that blossomed in too retired a shade... Instead of passion there is sentiment and even in what purport to be pictures of actual life we have allegory, not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether from lack of power or an inconquerable reserve, the author's touches have often an effect of tameness. The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages";
and in his _Notebook_ (1840) he confesses:
"I used to think I could imagine all the passions, all feelings and states of the heart and mind, but how little did I know! Indeed we are but shadows, we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest shadow of a dream--till the heart be touched."
Whether he is threading the labyrinths of his imagination orwatching the human shadows come and go, Hawthorne lingers longerin the shadow than in the sunshine. He was not a man of moroseand gloomy temper, disenchanted with life and driven by distressor thwarted passion to brood in solitude. An irresistible,inexplicable impulse drives him towards the sombre and thegloomy. The delicacy and wistful charm of the words in whichHawthorne criticises his own work and character reveal howimpossible it would have been for him to force his waywardgenius. His imagination hovers with curious persistence roundeerie, fantastic themes:
"An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of makingall the images reflected in it pass again across its surface"--ahint skilfully introduced into the history of old Esther Dudleyin _The Legends of the Province House_, or:
"A dreadful secret to be communicated to several persons of various character--grave or gay--and they all to become insane, according to their characters, by the influence of the secret"
--an idea modified and adapted in _The Marble Faun_. "An ice-coldhand--which people ever afterwards remember when once they havegrasped it"--is bestowed on the Wandering Jew, the owner of themarvellous _Virtuoso's Collection_, whose treasures include theblood-encrusted pen with which Dr. Faustus signed away hissalvation, Peter Schlemihl's shadow, the elixir of life, and thephilosopher's stone. The form of a vampire, who apparently nevertook shape on paper, flitted through the twilight of Hawthorne'simagination:
"Stories to be told of a certain person's appearance in public, of his having been seen in various situations, and his making visits in private circles; but finally on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave and mossy tombstone."
With so many alluring suggestions floating shadowwise across hismind, it is not wonderful that Hawthorne should have beenfascinated by the dream of a human life prolonged far beyond theusual span--a dream, which, if realised, would have enabled himto capture in words more of those "shapes that haunt thought'swildernesses."
Although among the sketches collected in _Twice-Told Tales_ (vol.i. 1837, vol. ii. 1842) some are painted in gay and lively hues,the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful. Thelight-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in _The SevenVagabonds_, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in _LittleAnnie's Rambles_, the quiet cheerfulness of _Sunday at Home_ or_The Rill from the Town Pump_, only serve to throw into darkerrelief gloomy legends like that of _Ethan Brand_, the man whowent in search of the Unpardonable Sin, or dreary stories likethat of _Edward Fane's Rosebud_, or the ghostly _White Old Maid_.One of the most carefully wrought sketches in _Twice-Told Tales_is the weird story of _The Hollow of the Three Hills_. By meansof a witch's spell, a lady hears the far-away voices of her agedparents--her mother querulous and tearful, her father calmlydespondent--and amid the fearful mirth of a madhousedistinguishes the accents and footstep of the husband she haswronged. At last she listens to the death-knell tolled for thechild she has left to die. The solemn rhythm of Hawthorne'sskilfully ordered sentences is singularly haunting andimpressive:
"The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to overspread the world. Again that evil woman began to weave her spell. Long did it proceed unanswered, till the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of her words, like a clang that had travelled far over valley and rising ground and was just ready to die in the air... Stronger it grew, and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell, knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower, and bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall and to the solitary wayfarer that all might weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. Then came a measured tread, passing slowly, slowly on as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing the ground so that the ear could measure the length of their melancholy array. Before them went the priest reading the burial-service, while the leaves of his book were rustling in the breeze. And though no voice but his was heard to speak aloud, still here were revilings and anathemas whispered, but distinct, from women and from men... The sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away like a thin vapour and the wind that just before had seemed to shake the coffin-pall moaned sadly round the verge of the hollow between three hills."
In a later collection of Hawthorne's short stories, _Mosses froman Old Manse_, the grave and the gay, t
he terrific and thesportive, are once more intermingled. Side by side with a forlornattempt at humorous allegory, Mrs. _Bullfrog_, we find theserious moral allegories of _The Birthmark_ and _TheBosom-Serpent_, the wild, mysterious forest-revels in _GoodmanBrown_, and the evil, sinister beauty of _Dr. Rappacini'sDaughter_, a modern rehandling of the ancient legend of thepoison-maiden, who was perhaps the prototype of Oliver WendellHolmes' heroine in _Elsie Venner_ (1861). The quiet grace andnatural ease of Hawthorne's style lend even to his leastambitious tales a distinctive charm. If he chooses a slight andsimple theme, his touch is deft and sure. _Dr. Heidegger'sExperiment_, in which Hawthorne's delicate, whimsical fancy playsround the idea of the elixir of life, is almost like a series ofminiature pictures, distinct and lifelike in form and colour,seen through the medium of an old-fashioned magic-lantern. Yeteven in this fantastic trifle we can discern the feeling forwords and the sense of proportion that characterise Hawthorne'slonger works.
_The Scarlet Letter_ (1850) was originally intended to be one ofseveral short stories, but Hawthorne was persuaded to expand itinto a novel. He felt some misgivings as to the success of thework:
"Keeping so close to the point as the tale does, and diversified in no otherwise than by turning different sides of the same dark idea to the reader's eye, it will weary very many people and disgust some."
The plot bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Lockhart'sstriking novel, _Adam Blair_. The "dark idea" that fascinatesHawthorne is the psychological state of Hester Prynne and herlover, Arthur Dimmesdale, in the long years that follow theirlawless passion. Their love story hardly concerns him at all. Theinterest of the novel does not depend on the development of theplot. No attempt is made to complicate the story by concealingthe identity of Hester's lover or of her husband. The actiontakes place within the souls and minds of the characters, not intheir outward circumstances. The central chapter of the book isnamed significantly: "The Interior of a Heart." The moralsituation described in _The Scarlet Letter_ did not presentitself to Hawthorne abstractly, but as a series of pictures. Hehabitually thought in images, and he brooded so long over hisconceptions that his descriptions are almost as definite inoutline and as vivid in colour as things actually seen. Hispictures do not waver or fade elusively as the mind seeks torealise them. The prison door, studded with pikes, before whichHester Prynne first stands with the letter on her breast, thepillory where Dimmesdale keeps vigil at midnight, theforest-trees with pale, fitful gleams of sunshine glintingthrough their leaves, are so distinct that we almost put out ourhands to touch them. Hawthorne's dream-imagery has the sameconvincing reality. The phantasmagoric visions which floatthrough Hester's consciousness--the mirrored reflection of herown face in girlhood, her husband's thin, scholar-like visage,the grey houses of the cathedral city where she had spent herearly years--are more real to her and to us than the blurredfaces of the Puritans who throng the marketplace to gaze on herignominy. Although the moral tone of the book is one of almostunrelieved gloom, the actual scenes are full of colour and light.Pearl's scarlet frock with its fantastic embroideries, themagnificent velvet gown and white ruff of the old dame who ridesoff by night to the witch-revels in the forest, the group of RedIndians in their deer-skin robes and wampum belts of red andyellow ochre, the bronzed faces and gaudy attire of the Spanishpirates, all stand out in bold relief among the sober greys andbrowns of the Puritans. The tense, emotional atmosphere isheightened by the festive brightness of the outer world.
The light of Hawthorne's imagination is directed mainly on threecharacters--Hester, Arthur, and the elf-like child Pearl, theliving symbol of their union. Further in the background lurks themalignant figure of Roger Chillingworth, contriving his fiendishscheme of vengeance, "violating in cold blood the sanctity of ahuman heart." The blaze of the Scarlet Letter compels us by astrange magnetic power to follow Hester Prynne wherever she goes,but her suffering is less acute and her character less intricatethan her lover's. She bears the outward badge of shame, but after"wandering without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind," wins adull respite from anguish as she glides "like a grey and sobershadow" over the threshold of those who are visited by sorrow. Atthe last, when Dimmesdale's spirit is "so shattered and subduedthat it could hardly hold itself erect," Hester has still energyto plan and to act. His character is more twisted and tortuousthan hers, and to understand him we must visit him apart. Thesensitive nature that can endure physical pain but shrinkspiteously from moral torture, the capacity for deep andpassionate feeling, the strange blending of pride and abjectself-loathing, of cowardice and resolve, are portrayed withextraordinary skill. The different strands of his character are"intertwined in an inextricable knot." His is a living soul,complicated and varying in its moods, but ever pursued by a senseof sin. By one of Hawthorne's swift, uncanny flashes of insight,as Dimmesdale goes home after the forest-meeting, we hear nothingof the wild beatings of hope and dreary revulsions to despair,but only of foul, grotesque temptations that assail him, just asearlier--on the pillory--it is the grim humour and not thefrightful shame of the situation that strikes him, when by an oddtrick of his imagination he suddenly pictures a "whole tribe ofdecorous personages starting into view with the disorder of anightmare in their aspects," to look upon their minister.
Hawthorne's delineation of character and motive is asscrupulously accurate and scientific as Godwin's, but there isnone of Godwin's inhumanity in his attitude. His completeunderstanding of human weakness makes pity superfluous andundignified. He pronounces no judgment and offers no plea formercy. His instinct is to present the story as it appearedthrough the eyes of those who enacted the drama or who witnessedit. Stern and inexorable as one of his own witch-judgingancestors, Hawthorne foils the lovers' plan of escape across thesea, lets the minister die as soon as he has made the revelationthat gives him his one moment of victory, and in the conclusionbrings Hester back to take up her long-forsaken symbol of shame.Pearl alone Hawthorne sets free, the spell which bound her humansympathies broken by the kiss she bestows on her guilty father.There are few passionate outbursts of feeling, save when Hestermomentarily unlocks her heart in the forest--and even hereHawthorne's language is extraordinarily restrained:
"'What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other. Hast thou forgotten it?' 'Hush, Hester!' said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the ground. 'No; I have not forgotten.'"
Or again, after Dimmesdale has confessed that he has neitherstrength nor courage left him to venture into the world: "'Thoushalt not go alone!' answered she, in a deep whisper. Then allwas spoken."
In _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851), as in _The ScarletLetter_, Hawthorne again presents his scenes in the light of asingle, pervading idea, this time an ancestral curse, symbolisedby the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, who condemned an innocentman for witchcraft.
"To the thoughtful man there will be no tinge of superstition in what we figuratively express, by affirming that the ghost of a dead progenitor--perhaps as a portion of his own punishment--is often doomed to become the Evil Genius of his family."
Hawthorne wins his effect by presenting the idea to our mindsfrom different points of view, until we are obsessed by the cursethat broods heavily over the old house. Even the aristocraticbreed of fowls, of "queer, rusty, withered aspect," are an emblemof the decay of the Pyncheon family. The people are apt to bemerged into the dense shadows that lurk in the gloomy passages,but when the sun shines on them they stand out with arrestingdistinctness. The heroic figure of Hepzibah Pyncheon, a littleridiculous and a little forbidding of aspect, but cherishingthrough weary years a passionate devotion to her brother, isdescribed with a gentle blending of humour and pathos. CliffordPyncheon--the sybarite made for happiness and hideously cheatedof his destiny--is delineated with curious insight and sympathy.It is Judge Jaffery Pyncheon, with his "sultry" smile of"elaborate benevolence"--unrelenting and crafty as his infamousancestor--who lends to _The House of Seven Gables_ the element of
terror. Hour after hour, Hawthorne, with grim and bitter irony,mocks and taunts the dead body of the hypocritical judge untilthe ghostly pageantry of dead Pyncheons--including at last JudgeJaffery himself with the fatal crimson stain on hisneckcloth--fades away with the oncoming of daylight.
Hawthorne's mind was richly stored with "wild chimney-cornerlegends," many of them no doubt gleaned from an old womanmentioned in one of his _Tales and Sketches_. He takes over thefantastic superstitions in which his ancestors had believed, anduses them as the playthings of his fancy, picturing withmalicious mirth the grey shadows of his stern, dark-browedforefathers sadly lamenting his lapse from grace and saying oneto the other:
"A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life, what manner of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler."
The story of Alice Pyncheon, the maiden under the dreadful powerof a wizard, who, to wreak his revenge, compelled her tosurrender her will to his and to do whatsoever he list, thelegends of ghosts and spectres in the _Twice-Told Tales_, theallusions to the elixir of life in his _Notebooks_, theintroduction of witches into _The Scarlet Letter_, of mesmerisminto _The Blithedale Romance_, show how often Hawthorne waspre-occupied with the terrors of magic and of the invisibleworld. He handles the supernatural in a half-credulous,half-sportive spirit, neither affirming nor denying his belief.One of his artful devices is wilfully to cast doubt upon hisfancies, and so to pique us into the desire to be momentarily atleast one of the foolish and imaginative.
After writing _The Blithedale Romance_, in which he embodied hisexperiences at Brook Farm, and his Italian romance,_Transformation, or The Marble Faun_, Hawthorne, when his healthwas failing, strove to find expression for the theme ofimmortality, which had always exercised a strange fascinationupon him. In August, 1855, during his consulate in Liverpool, hevisited Smithell's Hall, near Bolton, and heard the legend of theBloody Footstep. He thought of uniting this story with that ofthe elixir of life, but ultimately decided to treat the story ofthe footstep in _Dr. Grimshawe's Secret_, of which only afragment was written, and to embody the elixir idea in a separatework, _Septimius Felton_, of which two unfinished versions exist.Septimius Felton, a young man living in Concord at the time ofthe war of the Revolution, tries to brew the potion of eternityby adding to a recipe, which his aunt has derived from theIndians, the flowers which spring from the grave of a man whom hehas slain. In _Dr. Dolliver's Romance_, Hawthorne, so far as wemay judge from the fragment which remains, seems to be workingout an idea jotted down in his notebook several years earlier:
"A man arriving at the extreme point of old age grows young again at the same pace at which he had grown old, returning upon his path throughout the whole of life, and thus taking the reverse view of matters. Methinks it would give rise to some odd concatenations."
The story, which opens with a charming description of Dr.Dolliver and his great-grandchild, Pansie, breaks off so abruptlythat it is impossible to forecast the "odd concatenations" thathad flashed through Hawthorne's mind.
Although Hawthorne is preoccupied continually with the thought ofdeath, his outlook is melancholy, not morbid. He recoilsfastidiously from the fleshly and loses himself in the spiritual.He is concerned with mournful reflections, not frightful events.It is the mystery of death, not its terror, that fascinates him.Sensitive and susceptible himself, he never startles us withphysical horrors. He does not search with curious ingenuity forrecondite terrors. He was compelled as if by some wizard'sstrange power, to linger in earth's shadowed places; but thescenes that throng his memory are reflected in quiet, subduedtones. His pictures are never marred by harsh lines or crudecolours.
While Hawthorne in his _Twice-Told Tales_ was toying pensivelywith spectral forms and "dark ideas," Edgar Allan Poe waspenetrating intrepidly into trackless regions of terror. WhereHawthorne would have shrunk back, repelled and disgusted, Poe,wildly exhilarated by the anticipation of a new and excruciatingthrill, forced his way onwards. He sought untiringly for unusualsituations, inordinately gloomy or terrible, and made them thestarting point for excursions into abnormal psychology. Just asHawthorne harps with plaintive insistence on the word "sombre,"Poe again and again uses the epithet "novel." His tales arenever, as Hawthorne's often are, pathetic. His instinct is alwaystowards the dramatic. Sometimes he rises to tragic heights,sometimes he is merely melodramatic. He rejoices in theatricaleffects, like the death-throes of William Wilson, the return ofthe lady Ligeia, or the entry, awaited with torturing suspense,of the "lofty" and enshrouded figure of the Lady Madeline ofUsher. Like Hawthorne, Poe was fascinated by the thought ofdeath, "the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed him night andday," but he describes death accompanied by its direst physicaland mental agonies. Hawthorne broods over the idea of sin, butPoe probes curiously into the psychology of crime. The one isdetached and remote, the other inhuman and passionless. Thecontrast in style between Hawthorne and Poe reflects clearlytheir difference in temper. Hawthorne writes always with easy,finished perfection, choosing the right word unerringly, Poeexperiments with language, painfully acquiring a conscious,studied form of expression which is often remarkably effective,but which almost invariably suggests a sense of artifice. Inreading _The Scarlet Letter_ we do not think of the style; inreading _The Masque of the Red Death_ we are forcibly impressedby the skilful arrangement of words, the alternation of long andshort sentences, the device of repetition and the deliberatechoice of epithets. Hawthorne uses his own natural form ofexpression. Poe, with laborious art, fashions an instrumentadmirably adapted to his purposes.
Poe's earliest published story, _A Manuscript Found in aBottle_--the prize tale for the _Baltimore Saturday Visitor_,1833--proves that he soon recognised his peculiar vein of talent.He straightway takes the tale of terror for his own. Theexperiences of a sailor, shipwrecked in the Simoom and hurled onthe crest of a towering billow into a gigantic ship manned by ahoary crew who glide uneasily to and fro "like the ghosts ofburied centuries," forecast the more frightful horrors of _ADescent into the Maelstrom_ (1841). Poe's method in both storiesis to induce belief by beginning with a circumstantial narrativeof every-day events, and by proceeding to relate the moststartling phenomena in the same calm, matter-of-fact manner. Thewhirling abyss of the Maelstrom in which the tiny boat isengulfed, and the sensations of the fishermen--awe, wonder,horror, curiosity, hope, alternating or intermingled--aredescribed with the same quiet precision as the trivialpreliminary adventures. The man's dreary expectation ofincredulity seals our conviction of the truth of his story. In_The Manuscript Found in a Bottle_, too, we may trace the firstsuggestion of that idea which finds its most complete andmemorable expression in _Ligeia_ (1837). The antique ship, withits preternaturally aged crew "doomed to hover continually uponthe brink of eternity, without taking a final plunge into theabyss," is an early foreshadowing of the fulfilment of JosephGlanvill's declaration so strikingly illustrated in the return ofLigeia: "Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto deathutterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." In_Ligeia_, Poe concentrates on this idea with singleness ofpurpose. He had striven to embody it in his earlier sketches, in_Morella_, where the beloved is reincarnated in the form of herown child, in the musical, artificial _Eleonora_ and in thegruesome _Berenice_. In _Ligeia_, at last, it finds itsappropriate setting in the ebony bridal-chamber, hung with goldtapestries grotesquely embroidered with fearful shapes andconstantly wafted to and fro, like those in one of the _Episodesof Vathek_. In _The Fall of the House of Usher_ he adapts thetheme which he had approached in the sketch entitled _PrematureBurial_, and unites with it a subtler conception, the sentienceof the vegetable world. Like the guest of Roderick Usher, as weenter the house we fall immediately beneath the overmasteringsway of its irredeemable, insufferable gloom. The melancholybuilding, Usher's wild musical improvisations, his vague butawful paintings, his mystical reading and his eerie ve
rses withthe last haunting stanza:
"And travellers now within that valley Through the red-litten windows, see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a rapid, ghastly river, Through the pale door, A hideous throng rush out forever And laugh--but smile no more,"
are all in harmony with the fate that broods over the family ofUsher. Poe's gift for avoiding all impressions alien to hiseffect lends to his tales extraordinary unity of tone and colour.He leads up to his crisis with a gradual crescendo of emotion.The climax, hideous and terrifying, relieves the intensity of ourfeelings, and once it is past Poe rapidly hastens to the onlypossible conclusion. The dreary house with its vacant, eye-likewindows reflected at the outset in the dark, unruffled tarn,disappears for ever beneath its surface.
In _The Masque of the Red Death_ the imagery changes from momentto moment, each scene standing out clear in colour and sharp inoutline; but from first to last the perspective of the whole iskept steadily in view. No part is disproportionate orinappropriate. The arresting overture describing the swift andsudden approach of the Red Death, the gay, thoughtless securityof Prince Prospero and his guests within the barricaded abbey,the voluptuous masquerade held in a suite of seven rooms of sevenhues, the disconcerting chime of the ebony clock that momentarilystills the grotesque figures of the dancers, prepare us for thedramatic climax, the entry of the audacious guest, the Red Death,and his struggle with Prince Prospero. The story closes as itbegan with the triumph of the Red Death. Poe achieves hispowerful effect with rigid economy of effort. He does not add anunnecessary touch.
In _The Cask of Amontillado_--perhaps the most terrible and themost perfectly executed of all Poe's tales--the note of grimirony is sustained throughout. The jingling of the bells and thedevilish profanity of the last three words--_Requiescat inpace_--add a final touch of horror to a revenge, devised andcarried out with consummate artistry.
Poe, like Hawthorne, loved to peer curiously into the dimrecesses of conscience. Hawthorne was concerned with the effectof remorse on character. Poe often exhibits a consciencepossessed by the imp of the perverse, and displays no interest inthe character of his victim. He chooses no ordinary crimes. Heconsiders, without De Quincey's humour, murder as a fine art. In_The Black Cat_ the terrors are calculated with cold-bloodednicety. Every device is used to deepen the impression and tointensify the agony. In _The Tell-Tale Heart_, so unremitting isthe suspense, as the murderer slowly inch by inch projects hishead round the door in the darkness, that it is well-nighintolerable. The close of the story, which errs on the side ofthe melodramatic, is less cunningly contrived than Poe's endingsusually are. In _William Wilson_, Poe handles the subject ofconscience in an allegorical form, a theme essayed by BulwerLytton in one of his sketches in _The Student, Monos andDaimonos_. He probably influenced Stevenson's _Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde_.
In _The Pit and the Pendulum_, Poe seems to start from the veryborder-line of the most hideous nightmare that the human mind canconceive, yet there is nothing hazy or indefinite in his analysisof the feelings of his victim. He speaks as one who hasexperienced the sensations himself, not as one who is making awild surmise. To read is, indeed, to endure in some measure thetorture of the prisoner; but our pain is alleviated not only bythe realisation that we at least may win respite when we will,but by our appreciation of Poe's subtle technique. He notices thereadiness of the mind, when racked unendurably, to concentrate onfrivolous trifles--the exact shape and size of the dungeon; orthe sound of the scythe cutting through cloth. Mental andphysical agonies are interchanged with careful art.
Poe's constructive power fitted him admirably to write thedetective story. In _The Mystery of M. Roget_ he adopts a dullplot without sufficient vigour and originality to rivet ourattention, but _The Murders of the Rue Morgue_ secures ourinterest from beginning to end. As in the case of Godwin's _CalebWilliams_, the end was conceived first and the plot was carefullywoven backwards. No single thread is left loose. Dupin's methodsof ratiocination are similar to those of Conan Doyle's SherlockHolmes. Poe never shirks a gory detail, but the train ofreasoning not the imagery absorbs us in his detective stories. Inhis treasure story--_The Gold Bug_, which may have suggestedStevenson's _Treasure Island_--he compels our interest by theintricacy and elaboration of his problem.
The works of Mrs. Radcliffe, Lewis, and Maturin were not unknownto Poe, and he refers more than once to the halls of Vathek. FromGothic romance he may perhaps vivid that they make the sensesache. Like Maturin, he even resorts to italics to enforce hiseffect. He crashes down heavily on a chord which would resound ata touch. He is liable too to descend into vulgarity in his choiceof phrases. His tales consequently gain in style in thetranslations of Baudelaire. But these aberrations occur mainly inhis inferior work. In his most highly wrought stories, such as_Amontillado_, _The House of Usher_, or _The Masque of the RedDeath_, the execution is flawless. In these, Poe never lost sightof the ideal, which, in his admirable review of Hawthorne's_Twice-Told Tales_ and _Mosses from an Old Manse_, he set beforethe writer of short stories:
"A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale ... having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such events--as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, he has failed in the first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency direct or indirect is not to the one pre-established design."
While he was writing, Poe did not for a moment let hisimagination run riot. The outline of the story was so distinctlyconceived, its atmosphere so familiar to him, that he had leisureto choose his words accurately, and to dispose his sentencesharmoniously, with the final effect ever steadily in view. Theimpression that he swiftly flashes across our minds is deep andenduring.
The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance Page 18