Mosses from an Old Manse, Volume 2

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

  “Yes—there is the proof of what you say.” answered I, turning to the observer. “But if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether the world’s expectation of benefit would be realized by it.”

  “Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in front of the blazing pile. “Possibly they may teach you something useful, without intending it.”

  The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows—the hangman, in short—together with the last thief and the last murderer; all three of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency; as considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney.

  “The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that—as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor—I help you, my three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer.”

  “Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage, who now joined the group—his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire—“Be not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all; yes—though they had burnt the earth itself to a cinder?”

  “And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer.

  “What but the human heart itself!” said the dark visaged stranger, with a portentous grin. “And unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery—the same old shapes, or worse ones—which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by, this live-long night, and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. Oh, take my word for it, it will be the old world yet!”

  This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How sad a truth—if true it were—that Man’s age-long endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the Evil Principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart—the heart —there was the little yet boundless sphere, wherein existed the original wrong, of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere; and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms, and vanish of their own accord. But if we go no deeper than the Intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream; so unsubstantial, that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we chose to call a real event, and a flame that would scorch the finger—or only a phosphoric radiance, and a parable of my own brain!

  THE OLD APPLE-DEALER.

  The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he seeks in a character, which is, nevertheless, of too negative a description to be seized upon, and represented to the imaginative vision by word-painting. As an instance, I remember an old man who carries on a little trade of gingerbread and apples, at the depot of one of our railroads. While awaiting the departure of the cars, my observation, flitting to and fro among the livelier characteristics of the scene, has often settled insensibly upon this almost hueless object. Thus, unconsciously to myself, and unsuspected by him, I have studied the old apple-dealer, until he has become a naturalized citizen of my inner world. How little would he imagine—many a beautiful face—has flitted before me, and vanished like a shadow. It is a strange witchcraft, whereby this faded and featureless old apple-dealer has gained a settlement in my memory!

  He is a small man, with grey hair and grey stubble beard, and is invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff-color, closely buttoned, and half-concealing a pair of grey pantaloons; the whole dress, though clean and entire, being evidently flimsy with much wear. His face, thin, withered, furrowed, and with features which even age has failed to render impressive, has a frost-bitten aspect. It is a moral frost, which no physical warmth or comfortableness could counteract. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat upon him, or the good fire of the depot-room may make him hte focus of its blaze, on a winter’s day; but all in vain; for still the old man looks as if he were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not desperate—that, though its etymology implies no more, would be too positive an expression—but merely devoid of hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of course; he thinks it the definition of existence, so far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold, and uncomfortable. It may be added, that time has not thrown dignity, as a mantle, over the old man’s figure; there is nothing venerable about him; you pity him without a scruple.

  He sits on a bench in the depot-room; an before him, on the floor, are deposited two baskets, of a capacity to contain his whole stock in trade. Across, from one basket to the other, extends a board, on which is displayed a plate of cakes and gingerbread, some russet and red checked apples, and a box containing variegated sticks of candy; together with that delectable condiment, known by children as Gibraltar rock, neatly done up in white paper. There is likewise a half-peck measure of cracked walnuts, and two or three tin half-pints or gills, filled with the nut kernels, ready for purchasers. Such are the small commodities with which our old friend comes daily before the world, ministeringto its petty needs and little freaks of appetite, and seeking thence the solid subsistence—so far as he may subsist—of his life.

  A slight observer would speak of the old man’s quietude. But, on closer scrutiny, you discover there there is a continual unrest within him, which somewhat resembles the fluttering action of the nerves, in a corpse from which life has recently departed. Though he never exhibits any violent action, and, indeed, might appear to be sitting quite still, yet you perceive, when his minuter peculiarities begin to be detected, that he is always making some little movement or other. He looks anxiously at his plate of cakes, or pyramid of apples, and slightly alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that a great deal depends on their being disposed exactly thus and so. Then, for a moment, he gazes out of the window; then he shivers, quietly, and folds his arms across his breast, as if to draw himself closer within himself, and thus keep a flicker of warmth in his lonesome heart. Now he turns again to his merchandise of cakes, apples, and candy, and discovers that this cake or that apple, or yonder stick of red and white candy, has, somehow, got out of its proper position. And is there not a walnut-kernel too many, or too few, in one of those small tin measures? Again, the whole arrangement appears to be settled to his mind; but, in the course of a minute or two, there will assuredly be something to set right. At times, by an indescribable shadow upon his features—too quiet, however, to be noticed, until you are familiar with his ordinary aspect—the expression of frost-bitten, patient despondency becomes very touching. It seems as if, just at that instant, the suspicion occurred to him, that, in his chill decline of life, earning scanty bread by selling cakes, apples, and candy, he is a very miserable old fellow.

  But, if he think so, it is a mistake. He can never suffer the extreme of misery, because the tone of his whole being is too much subdued for him to feel anything acutely.

  Occasionally, one of the passengers, to while away a tedious interval,
approaches the old man, inspects the articles upon his board, and even peeps curiously into the two baskets. Another, striding to and fro along the room, throws a look at the apples and gingerbread, at every turn. A third, it may be, of a more sensitive > sitive and delicate texture of being, glances shily thitherward, cautious not to excite expectations of a purchaser, while yet undetermined whether to buy. But there appears to be no need of such a scrupulous regard to our old friend’s feelings. True, he is conscious of the remote possibility of selling a cake or an apple, but innumerable disappointments have rendered him so far a philosopher, that, even if the purchased article should be returned, he will consider it altogether in the ordinary train of events. He speaks to none, and makes no sign of offering his wares to the public; not that he is deterred by pride, but by the certain conviction that such demonstrations would not increase his custom. Besides, this activity in business would require an energy that never could have been a characteristic of his almost passive disposition, even in youth. Whenever an actual customer appears, the old man looks up with a patient eye; if the price and the article are approved, he is ready to make change; otherwise, his eyelids droop again, sadly enough, but with no heavier despondency than before. He shivers, perhaps, folds his lean arms around his lean body, and resumes the life-long, frozen patience, in which consists his strength. Once in a while, a schoolboy comes hastily up, places a cent or two upon the board, and takes up a cake or stick of candy, or a measure of walnuts, or an apple as red cheeked as himself. There are no words as to price, that being as well known to the buyer as to the seller. The old apple-dealer never speaks an unnecessary word; not that he is sullen and morose; but there is none of the cheeriness and briskness in him, that stirs up people to talk.

  Not seldom, he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well-to-do in the world, who makes a civil, patronizing observation about the weather; and then, by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to chaffer for an apple. Our friend presumes not on any past acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response to all general remarks, and shrinks quietly into himself again. After every diminution of his stock, he takes care to produce from the basket another cake, another stick of candy, another apple, or another measure of walnuts, to supply the place of the article sold. Two or three attempts—or, perchance, half a dozen—are requisite, before the board can be re-arranged to his satisfaction. If he have received a silver coin, he waits till the purchaser is out of sight, then examines it closely, and tries to bend it with his finger and thumb; finally, he puts it into his waistcoat pocket, with seemingly a gentle sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and not expressive of any definite emotion, is the accompaniment and conclusion of all his actions. It is the symbol of the chillness and torpid melancholy of his old age, which only make themselves felt sensibly, when his repose is slightly disturbed.

  Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a specimen of the “needy man who has seen better days.” Doubtless, there have been better and brighter days in the far-off time of his youth; but none with so much sunshine of prosperity in them, that the chill, the depression, the narrowness of means, in his declining years, can have come upon him by surprise. His life has all been of a piece. His subdued and nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which, likewise, contained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid age. He was perhaps a mechanic, who never came to be a master in his craft, or a petty tradesman, rubbing onward between passably-to-do and poverty. Possibly, he may look back to some brilliant epoch of his career, when there were a hundred or two of dollars to his credit, in the Savings Bank. Such must have been the extent of his better fortune—his little measure of this world’s triumphs—all that he has known of success. A meek, downcast, humble, uncomplaining creature, he probably has never felt himself entitled to more than so much of the gifts of Providence. Is it not still something, that he has never held out his hand for charity, nor has yet been driven to that sad home and household of Earth’s forlorn and broken-spirited children, the almshouse? He cherishes no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author of it. All is as it should be.

  If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son—a bold, energetic, vigorous young man, on whom the father’s feeble nature leaned, as on a staff of strength—in that case, he may have felt a bitterness that could not otherwise have been generated in his heart. But methinks, the joy of possessing such a son, and the agony of losing him, would have developed the old man’s moral and intellectual nature to a much greater degree than we now find it. Intense grief appears to be as much out of keeping with his life, as fervid happiness.

  To confess the truth, it is not the easies matter in the world to define and individualize a character like this which we are now handling. The portrait must be so generally negative, that the most delicate pencil is likely to spoil it by introducing some too positive tint. Every touch must be kept down, or else you destroy the subdued tone, which is absolutely essential to the whole effect. Perhaps more may be done by contrast, than by direct description. For this purpose, I make use of another cake-and-candy merchant, who likewise infests the railroad depot. This latter worthy is a very smart and well-dressed boy, of ten years old or thereabouts, who skips briskly hither and thither, addressing the passengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of good breeding in his tone and pronunciation. Now he has caught my eye, and skips across the room with a pretty pertness, which I should like to correct with a box on the ear. “Any cake, sir? —any candy?”

  No; none for me, my lad. I did but glance at your brisk figure, in order to catch a reflected light, and throw it upon your old rival yonder.

  Again, in order to invest my conception of the old man with a more decided sense of reality, I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars. The shriek of the engine, as it rushes into the car-house, is the utterance of the steam-fiend, whom man has subdued by magic spells, and compels to serve as a beast of burden. He has skimmed rivers in his headlong rush, dashed through forests, plunged into the hearts of mountains, and glanced from the city to the desert-place, and again to a far-off city, with a meteoric progress, seen, and out of sight, while his reverberating roar still fills the ear. The travellers swarm forth from the cars. All are full of the momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance. It seems as if the whole world, both morally and physically, were detached from its old standfasts, and set in rapid motion. And, in the midst of this terrible activity, there sits the old man of gingerbread, so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, and yet not positively miserable—there he sits, the forlorn old creature, one chill and sombre day after another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, apples and candy—there sits the old apple-dealer, in his threadbare suit of snuff-color and grey, and his grisly stubble-beard. See! he folds his lean arms around his lean figure, with that quiet sigh, and that scarcely perceptible shiver, which are the tokens of his inward state. I have him now. He and the steam-fiend are each other’s antipodes; the latter is the type of all that go ahead—and the old man, the representative of that melancholy class who, by some sad witchcraft, are doomed never to share in the world’s exulting progress. Thus the contrast between mankind and this desolate brother becomes picturesque, and even sublime.

  And now farewell, old friend! Little do you suspect that a student of human life has made your character the theme of more than one solitary and thoughtful hour. Many would say, that you have hardly individuality enough to be the object of your own self-love. How, then, can a stranger’s eye detect anything in your mind and heart, to study and to wonder at? Yet could I read but a tithe of what is written there, it would be a volume of deeper and more comprehensive import than all that the wisest mortals have given to the world; for the soundless depths of the human sould, and of eternity, have an opening through your breast. God be praised, were it only for your sake, that the present shapes of human existence are not cast in iron, nor hewn in everlasting adamant,
but moulded of the vapors that vanish away while the essence flits upward to the infinite. There is a spiritual essence in this grey and lean old shape that shall flit upward too. Yes; doubtless there is a region, where the life-long shiver will pass away from his being, and that quiet sigh, which it has taken him so many years to breathe, will be brought to a close for good and all.

  THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

  An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It was a projecting window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of watches,—pinchbeck, silver, and one or two of gold,—all with their faces turned from the street, as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers what o’clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to the window, with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece of mechanism, on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade-lamp, appeared a young man.

  “What can Owen Warland be about?” muttered old Peter Hovenden,—himself a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same young man, whose occupation he was now wondering at. “What can the fellow be about? These six months past, I have never come by his shop without seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the Perpetual Motion. And yet I know enough of my old business to be certain, that what he is now so busy with is no part of the machinery of a watch.”

  “Perhaps, father,” said Annie, without showing much interest in the question, “Owen is inventing a new kind of time-keeper. I am sure he has ingenuity enough.”