“At least,” I said, “Mr. Titbottom will not refuse
to tell us the history of his mysterious spectacles.
I have known plenty of magic in eyes (and
I glanced at the tender blue eyes of Prue), but I
have not heard of any enchanted glasses.”

“Yet you must have seen the glass in which
your wife looks every morning, and, I take it, that
glass must be daily enchanted,” said Titbottom,
with a bow of quaint respect to my wife.

I do not think I have seen such a blush upon
Prue's cheek since—well, since a great many years
ago.

“I will gladly tell you the history of my spectacles,”
began Titbottom. “It is very simple; and
I am not at all sure that a great many other people
have not a pair of the same kind. I have never,
indeed, heard of them by the gross, like those of
our young friend, Moses, the son of the Vicar of
Wakefield. In fact, I think a gross would be quite
enough to supply the world. It is a kind of article
for which the demand does not increase with use
If we should all wear spectacles like mine, we
should never smile any more. Or—I am not quite
sure—we should all be very happy.”

“A very important difference,” said Prue, counting
her stitches.

“You know my grandfather Titbottom was a

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

West Indian. A large proprietor, and an easy man,
he basked in the tropical sun, leading his quiet,
luxurious life. He lived much alone, and was what
people call eccentric—by which I understand, that
he was very much himself, and, refusing the influence
of other people, they had their revenges, and
called him names. It is a habit not exclusively
tropical. I think I have seen the same thing even
in this city.

“But he was greatly beloved—my bland and
bountiful grandfather. He was so large-hearted
and open-handed. He was so friendly, and thoughtful,
and genial, that even his jokes had the air of
graceful benedictions. He did not seem to grow
old, and he was one of those who never appear to
have been very young. He flourished in a perennial
maturity, an immortal middle-age.

“My grandfather lived upon one of the small
islands—St. Kitt's, perhaps—and his domain extended
to the sea. His house, a rambling West
Indian mansion, was surrounded with deep, spacious
piazzas, covered with luxurious lounges,
among which one capacious chair was his peculiar
seat. They tell me, he used sometimes to sit there
for the whole day, his great, soft, brown eyes fastened
upon the sea, watching the specks of sails
that flashed upon the horizon, while the evanescent

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

expressions chased each other over his placid face
as if it reflected the calm and changing sea before
him.

“His morning costume was an ample dressing-gown
of gorgeously-flowered silk, and his morning
was very apt to last all day. He rarely read; but
he would pace the great piazza for hours, with his
hands buried in the pockets of his dressing-gown,
and an air of sweet reverie, which any book must
be a very entertaining one to produce.

“Society, of course, he saw little. There was
some slight apprehension that, if he were bidden to
social entertainments, he might forget his coat, or
arrive without some other essential part of his
dress; and there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom
family, that once, having been invited to a ball in
honor of a new governor of the island, my grandfather
Titbottom sauntered into the hall towards
midnight, wrapped in the gorgeous flowers of his
dressing-gown, and with his hands buried in the
pockets, as usual. There was great excitement
among the guests, and immense deprecation of
gubernatorial ire. Fortunately, it happened that
the governor and my grandfather were old friends,
and there was no offence. But, as they were conversing
together, one of the distressed managers
cast indignant glances at the brilliant costume of

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

my grandfather, who summoned him, and asked
courteously:

“ `Did you invite me, or my coat?'

“ `You, in a proper coat,' replied the manager.

“The governor smiled approvingly, and looked
at my grandfather.

“ `My friend,' said he to the manager, `I beg your
pardon, I forgot.'

“The next day, my grandfather was seen promenading
in full ball dress along the streets of the
little town.

“ `They ought to know,' said he, `that I have a
proper coat, and that not contempt, nor poverty,
but forgetfulness, sent me to a ball in my dressing-gown.'

“He did not much frequent social festivals after
this failure, but he always told the story with satisfaction
and a quiet smile.

“To a stranger, life upon those little islands is
uniform even to weariness. But the old native
dons, like my grandfather, ripen in the prolonged
sunshine, like the turtle upon the Bahama banks,
nor know of existence more desirable. Life in the
tropics, I take to be a placid torpidity.

“During the long, warm mornings of nearly half
a century, my grandfather Titbottom had sat in his
dressing-gown, and gazed at the sea. But one calm

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

June day, as he slowly paced the piazza after
breakfast, his dreamy glance was arrested by a
little vessel, evidently nearing the shore. He called
for his spyglass, and, surveying the craft, saw that
she came from the neighboring island. She glided
smoothly, slowly, over the summer sea. The warm
morning air was sweet with perfumes, and silent
with heat. The sea sparkled languidly, and the
brilliant blue sky hung cloudlessly over. Scores of
little island vessels had my grandfather seen coming
over the horizon, and cast anchor in the port.
Hundreds of summer mornings had the white sails
flashed and faded, like vague faces through forgotten
dreams. But this time he laid down the spyglass,
and leaned against a column of the piazza, and
watched the vessel with an intentness that he could
not explain. She came nearer and nearer, a graceful
spectre in the dazzling morning.

“ `Decidedly, I must step down and see about
that vessel,' said my grandfather Titbottom.

“He gathered his ample dressing-gown about
him, and stepped from the piazza, with no other
protection from the sun than the little smoking-cap
upon his head. His face wore a calm, beaming
smile, as if he loved the whole world. He was not
an old man; but there was almost a patriarchal
pathos in his expression, as he sauntered along in

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

the sunshine towards the shore. A group of idle
gazers was collected, to watch the arrival. The
little vessel furled her sails, and drifted slowly landward,
and, as she was of very light draft, she came
close to the shelving shore. A long plank was put
out from her side, and the debarkation commenced.

“My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on, to
see the passengers as they passed. There were but
a few of them, and mostly traders from the neighboring
island. But suddenly the face of a young
girl appeared over the side of the vessel, and she
stepped upon the plank to descend. My grandfather
Titbottom instantly advanced, and, moving briskly,
reached the top of the plank at the same moment,
and with the old tassel of his cap flashing in the
sun, and one hand in the pocket of his dressing-gown,
with the other he handed the young lady
carefully down the plank. That young lady was
afterwards my grandmother Titbottom.

“For, over the gleaming sea which he had
watched so long, and which seemed thus to reward
his patient gaze, came his bride that sunny
morning.

“ `Of course, we are happy,' he used to say to
her, after they were married: `For you are the gift
of the sun I have loved so long and so well.' And
my grandfather Titbottom would lay his hand so

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

tenderly upon the golden hair of his young bride,
that you could fancy him a devout Parsee, caressing
sunbeams.

“There were endless festivities upon occasion of
the marriage; and my grandfather did not go to
one of them in his dressing-gown. The gentle
sweetness of his wife melted every heart into love
and sympathy. He was much older than she, without
doubt. But age, as he used to say with a smile
of immortal youth, is a matter of feeling, not of
years.

“And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side on the
piazza, her fancy looked through her eyes upon that
summer sea, and saw a younger lover, perhaps some
one of those graceful and glowing heroes who occupy
the foreground of all young maidens' visions by
the sea, yet she could not find one more generous
and gracious, nor fancy one more worthy and loving
than my grandfather Titbottom.

“And if, in the moonlit midnight, while he lay
calmly sleeping, she leaned out of the window,
and sank into vague reveries of sweet possibility,
and watched the gleaming path of the moonlight
upon the water, until the dawn glided over it—it
was only that mood of nameless regret and longing,
which underlies all human happiness; or it was
the vision of that life of cities and the world, which

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

she had never seen, but of which she had often read,
and which looked very fair and alluring across the
sea, to a girlish imagination, which knew that it
should never see that reality.

“These West Indian years were the great days
of the family,” said Titbottom, with an air of majestic
and regal regret, pausing, and musing, in our
little parlor, like a late Stuart in exile, remembering
England.

Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked
at him with subdued admiration; for I have observed
that, like the rest of her sex, she has a singular
sympathy with the representative of a reduced
family.

Perhaps it is their finer perception, which leads
these tender-hearted women to recognize the divine
right of social superiority so much more readily than
we; and yet, much as Titbottom was enhanced in
my wife's admiration by the discovery that his dusky
sadness of nature and expression was, as it were, the
expiring gleam and late twilight of ancestral splendors,
I doubt if Mr. Bourne would have preferred
him for book-keeper a moment sooner upon that
account. In truth, I have observed, down town,
that the fact of your ancestors doing nothing, is not
considered good proof that you can do anything.

But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more than

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

action, and I understand easily enough why she is
never tired of hearing me read of Prince Charlie.
If Titbottom had been only a little younger, a little
handsomer, a little more gallantly dressed—in fact,
a little more of a Prince Charlie, I am sure her eyes
would not have fallen again upon her work so tranquilly,
as he resumed his story.

“I can remember my grandfather Titbottom,
although I was a very young child, and he was a
very old man. My young mother and my young
grandmother are very distinct figures in my memory,
ministering to the old gentleman, wrapped in
his dressing-gown, and seated upon the piazza. I
remember his white hair, and his calm smile, and
how, not long before he died, he called me to
him, and laying his hand upon my head, said to
me:

“ `My child, the world is not this great sunny
piazza, nor life the fairy stories which the women
tell you here, as you sit in their laps. I shall soon
be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento
of my love for you, and I know of nothing
more valuable than these spectacles, which your
grandmother brought from her native island, when
she arrived here one fine summer morning, long
ago. I cannot tell whether, when you grow older,
you will regard them as a gift of the greatest value,

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

or as something that you had been happier never to
have possessed.'

“ `But, grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.'

“ `My son, are you not human?' said the old
gentleman; and how shall I ever forget the thoughtful
sadness with which, at the same time, he handed
me the spectacles.

“Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my
grandfather. But I saw no grandfather, no piazza,
no flowered dressing-gown; I saw only a luxuriant
palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape;
pleasant homes clustered around it; gardens teeming
with fruit and flowers; flocks quietly feeding;
birds wheeling and chirping. I heard children's
voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The
sound of cheerful singing came wafted from distant
fields upon the light breeze. Golden harvests
glistened out of sight, and I caught their rustling
whispers of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere
bathed the whole.

“I have seen copies of the landscapes of the
Italian painter Claude, which seemed to me faint
reminiscences of that calm and happy vision. But
all this peace and prosperity seemed to flow from
the spreading palm as from a fountain.

“I do not know how long I looked, but I had,
apparently, no power, as I had no will, to remove

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

the spectacles. What a wonderful island must
Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures
in their pockets, only by buying a pair of spectacles!
What wonder that my dear grandmother
Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has
blessed us all with her sunny temper, when she has
lived surrounded by such images of peace!

“My grandfather died. But still, in the warm
morning sunshine upon the piazza, I felt his placid
presence, and as I crawled into his great chair, and
drifted on in reverie through the still tropical day,
it was as if his soft dreamy eye had passed into my
soul. My grandmother cherished his memory with
tender regret. A violent passion of grief for his
loss was no more possible than for the pensive decay
of the year.

“We have no portrait of him, but I see always,
when I remember him, that peaceful and luxuriant
palm. And I think that to have known one good
old man—one man who, through the chances and
rubs of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand,
like a palm branch, waving all discords into peace,
helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each
other, more than many sermons. I hardly know
whether to be grateful to my grandfather for
the spectacles; and yet when I remember that
it is to them I owe the pleasant image of him

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

which I cherish, I seem to myself sadly ungrateful.

“Madam,” said Titbottom to Prue, solemnly,
“my memory is a long and gloomy gallery, and only
remotely, at its further end, do I see the glimmer
of soft sunshine, and only there are the pleasant
pictures hung. They seem to me very happy along
whose gallery the sunlight streams to their very
feet, striking all the pictured walls into unfading
splendor.”

Prue had laid her work in her lap, and as Titbottom
paused a moment, and I turned towards her, I
found her mild eyes fastened upon my face, and
glistening with many tears. I knew that the tears
meant that she felt herself to be one of those who
seemed to Titbottom very happy.

“Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon
the family after the head was gone. The great
house was relinquished. My parents were both
dead, and my grandmother had entire charge of me.
But from the moment that I received the gift of the
spectacles, I could not resist their fascination, and
I withdrew into myself, and became a solitary boy.
There were not many companions for me of my
own age, and they gradually left me, or, at least,
had not a hearty sympathy with me; for, if they
teased me, I pulled out my spectacles and surveyed

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

them so seriously that they acquired a kind of awe
of me, and evidently regarded my grandfather's gift
as a concealed magical weapon which might be
dangerously drawn upon them at any moment.
Whenever, in our games, there were quarrels and
high words, and I began to feel about my dress and
to wear a grave look, they all took the alarm, and
shouted, `Look out for Titbottom's spectacles,' and
scattered like a flock of scared sheep.

“Nor could I wonder at it. For, at first, before
they took the alarm, I saw strange sights when I
looked at them through the glasses.

“If two were quarrelling about a marble or a
ball, I had only to go behind a tree where I was
concealed and look at them leisurely. Then the
scene changed, and it was no longer a green meadow
with boys playing, but a spot which I did not recognise,
and forms that made me shudder, or smile.
It was not a big boy bullying a little one, but a
young wolf with glistening teeth and a lamb cowering
before him; or, it was a dog faithful and famishing—
or a star going slowly into eclipse—or a rainbow
fading—or a flower blooming—or a sun rising—
or a waning moon.

“The revelations of the spectacles determined
my feeling for the boys, and for all whom I saw
through them. No shyness, nor awkwardness, nor

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

silence, could separate me from those who looked
lovely as lilies to my illuminated eyes. But the
vision made me afraid. If I felt myself warmly
drawn to any one, I struggled with the fierce desire
of seeing him through the spectacles, for I feared
to find him something else than I fancied. I longed
to enjoy the luxury of ignorant feeling, to love
without knowing, to float like a leaf upon the eddies
of life, drifted now to a sunny point, now to a
solemn shade—now over glittering ripples, now
over gleaming calms,—and not to determined ports,
a trim vessel with an inexorable rudder.

“But sometimes, mastered after long struggles,
as if the unavoidable condition of owning the spectacles
were using them, I seized them and sauntered
into the little town. Putting them to my eyes I
peered into the houses and at the people who passed
me. Here sat a family at breakfast, and I stood at
the window looking in. O motley meal! fantastic
vision! The good mother saw her lord sitting
opposite, a grave, respectable being, eating muffins.
But I saw only a bank-bill, more or less crumbled
and tattered, marked with a larger or lesser figure.
If a sharp wind blew suddenly, I saw it tremble
and flutter; it was thin, flat, impalpable. I removed
my glasses, and looked with my eyes at the wife. I
could have smiled to see the humid tenderness with

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

which she regarded her strange vis-à-vis. Is life
only a game of blindman's-buff? of droll crosspurposes?

“Or I put them on again, and then looked at the
wives. How many stout trees I saw,—how many
tender flowers,—how many placid pools; yes, and
how many little streams winding out of sight,
shrinking before the large, hard, round eyes opposite,
and slipping off into solitude and shade, with a
low, inner song for their own solace.

“In many houses I thought to see angels,
nymphs, or, at least, women, and could only find
broomsticks, mops, or kettles, hurrying about, rattling
and tinkling, in a state of shrill activity. I
made calls upon elegant ladies, and after I had
enjoyed the gloss of silk, and the delicacy of lace,
and the glitter of jewels, I slipped on my spectacles,
and saw a peacock's feather, flounced, and furbelowed,
and fluttering; or an iron rod, thin, sharp,
and hard; nor could I possibly mistake the movement
of the drapery for any flexibility of the thing
draped.

“Or, mysteriously chilled, I saw a statue of perfect
form, or flowing movement, it might be alabaster,
or bronze, or marble,—but sadly often it was
ice; and I knew that after it had shone a little, and
frozen a few eyes with its despairing perfection, it

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

could not be put away in the niches of palaces for
ornament and proud family tradition, like the alabaster,
or bronze, or marble statues, but would
melt, and shrink, and fall coldly away in colorless
and useless water, be absorbed in the earth and utterly
forgotten.

“But the true sadness was rather in seeing those
who, not having the spectacles, thought that the
iron rod was flexible, and the ice statue warm. I
saw many a gallant heart, which seemed to me brave
and loyal as the crusaders, pursuing, through days
and nights, and a long life of devotion, the hope of
lighting at least a smile in the cold eyes, if not
a fire in the icy heart. I watched the earnest, enthusiastic
sacrifice. I saw the pure resolve, the
generous faith, the fine scorn of doubt, the impatience
of suspicion. I watched the grace, the ardor,
the glory of devotion. Through those strange spectacles
how often I saw the noblest heart renouncing
all other hope, all other ambition, all other life, than
the possible love of some one of those statues.

“Ah! me, it was terrible, but they had not the
love to give. The face was so polished and smooth,
because there was no sorrow in the heart,—and
drearily, often, no heart to be touched. I could
not wonder that the noble heart of devotion was
broken, for it had dashed itself against a stone. I

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

wept, until my spectacles were dimmed, for those
hopeless lovers; but there was a pang beyond tears
for those icy statues.

“Still a boy, I was thus too much a man in
knowledge,—I did not comprehend the sights I was
compelled to see. I used to tear my glasses away
from my eyes, and, frightened at myself, run to
escape my own consciousness. Reaching the small
house where we then lived, I plunged into my
grandmother's room, and, throwing myself upon
the floor, buried my face in her lap; and sobbed
myself to sleep with premature grief.

“But when I awakened, and felt her cool hand
upon my hot forehead, and heard the low sweet
song, or the gentle story, or the tenderly told
parable from the Bible, with which she tried to
soothe me, I could not resist the mystic fascination
that lured me, as I lay in her lap, to steal a glance
at her through the spectacles.

“Pictures of the Madonna have not her rare and
pensive beauty. Upon the tranquil little islands
her life had been eventless, and all the fine possibilities
of her nature were like flowers that never
bloomed. Placid were all her years; yet I have
read of no heroine, of no woman great in sudden
crises, that it did not seem to me she might have
been. The wife and widow of a man who loved

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

his home better than the homes of others, I have
yet heard of no queen, no belle, no imperial beauty,
whom in grace, and brilliancy, and persuasive courtesy,
she might not have surpassed.

“Madam,” said Titbottom to my wife, whose
heart hung upon his story; “your husband's young
friend, Aurelia, wears sometimes a camelia in her
hair, and no diamond in the ball-room seems so
costly as that perfect flower, which women envy,
and for whose least and withered petal men sigh;
yet, in the tropical solitudes of Brazil, how many a
camelia bud drops from the bush that no eye has
ever seen, which, had it flowered and been noticed,
would have gilded all hearts with its memory.

“When I stole these furtive glances at my grandmother,
half fearing that they were wrong, I saw
only a calm lake, whose shores were low, and over
which the sun hung unbroken, so that the least star
was clearly reflected. It had an atmosphere of
solemn twilight tranquillity, and so completely did
its unruffled surface blend with the cloudless, starstudded
sky, that, when I looked through my spectacles
at my grandmother, the vision seemed to me
all heaven and stars.

“Yet, as I gazed and gazed, I felt what stately
cities might well have been built upon those shores,
and have flashed prosperity over the calm, like

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

coruscations of pearls. I dreamed of gorgeous fleets,
silken-sailed, and blown by perfumed winds, drifting
over those depthless waters and through those
spacious skies. I gazed upon the twilight, the
inscrutable silence, like a God-fearing discoverer
upon a new and vast sea bursting upon him through
forest glooms, and in the fervor of whose impassioned
gaze, a millenial and poetic world arises, and
man need no longer die to be happy.

“My companions naturally deserted me, for I
had grown wearily grave and abstracted: and,
unable to resist the allurements of my spectacles,
I was constantly lost in the world, of which those
companions were part, yet of which they knew
nothing.

“I grew cold and hard, almost morose; people
seemed to me so blind and unreasonable. They
did the wrong thing. They called green, yellow;
and black, white. Young men said of a girl, `What
a lovely, simple creature!' I looked, and there
was only a glistening wisp of straw, dry and hollow.
Or they said, `What a cold, proud beauty!'
I looked, and lo! a Madonna, whose heart held the
world. Or they said, `What a wild, giddy girl!'
and I saw a glancing, dancing mountain stream,
pure as the virgin snows whence it flowed, singing
through sun and shade, over pearls and gold dust,

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

slipping along unstained by weed or rain, or heavy
foot of cattle, touching the flowers with a dewy
kiss,—a beam of grace, a happy song, a line of
light, in the dim and troubled landscape.

“My grandmother sent me to school, but I
looked at the master, and saw that he was a smooth
round ferule, or an improper noun, or a vulgar fraction,
and refused to obey him. Or he was a piece
of string, a rag, a willow-wand, and I had a contemptuous
pity. But one was a well of cool, deep
water, and looking suddenly in, one day, I saw the
stars.

“That one gave me all my schooling. With him
I used to walk by the sea, and, as we strolled and
the waves plunged in long legions before us, I
looked at him through the spectacles, and as his
eyes dilated with the boundless view, and his chest
heaved with an impossible desire, I saw Xerxes and
his army, tossed and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude
upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly
advancing, and with confused roar of ceaseless
music, prostrating themselves in abject homage.
Or, as with arms outstretched and hair streaming
on the wind, he chanted full lines of the resounding
Iliad, I saw Homer pacing the Egean sands of the
Greek sunsets of forgotten times.

“My grandmother died, and I was thrown into

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

the world without resources, and with no capital
but my spectacles. I tried to find employment, but
everybody was shy of me. There was a vague
suspicion that I was either a little crazed, or a good
deal in league with the prince of darkness. My
companions, who would persist in calling a piece
of painted muslin, a fair and fragrant flower, had no
difficulty; success waited for them around every
corner, and arrived in every ship.

“I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if
anything excited a suspicion of my pupils, and
putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling
a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I
sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed
to me through the glasses, that a cherub smiled
upon me, or a rose was blooming in my buttonhole,
then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not
fit to be leading and training what was so essentially
superior to myself, and I kissed the children and
left them weeping and wondering.

“In despair I went to a great merchant on the
island, and asked him to employ me.

“ `My dear young friend,' said he, `I understand
that you have some singular secret, some charm, or
spell, or amulet, or something, I don't know what,
of which people are afraid. Now you know, my
dear,' said the merchant, swelling up, and

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

apparently prouder of his great stomach than of his large
fortune, `I am not of that kind. I am not easily
frightened. You may spare yourself the pain of
trying to impose upon me. People who propose to
come to time before I arrive, are accustomed to
arise very early in the morning,' said he, thrusting
his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and
spreading the fingers like two fans, upon his bosom.
`I think I have heard something of your secret.
You have a pair of spectacles, I believe, that you
value very much, because your grandmother brought
them as a marriage portion to your grandfather.
Now, if you think fit to sell me those spectacles, I
will pay you the largest market price for them.
What do you say?'

“I told him I had not the slightest idea of selling
my spectacles.

“ `My young friend means to eat them, I suppose,'
said he, with a contemptuous smile.

“I made no reply, but was turning to leave the
office, when the merchant called after me—

“ `My young friend, poor people should never
suffer themselves to get into pets. Anger is an expensive
luxury, in which only men of a certain
income can indulge. A pair of spectacles and a
hot temper are not the most promising capital for
success in life, Master Titbottom.'

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

“I said nothing, but put my hand upon the door
to go out, when the merchant said, more respectfully—

“ `Well, you foolish boy, if you will not sell your
spectacles, perhaps you will agree to sell the use of
them to me. That is, you shall only put them on
when I direct you, and for my purposes. Hallo!
you little fool!' cried he, impatiently, as he saw
that I intended to make no reply.

“But I had pulled out my spectacles and put
them on for my own purposes, and against his wish
and desire. I looked at him, and saw a huge, baldheaded
wild boar, with gross chaps and a leering
eye—only the more ridiculous for the high-arched,
gold-bowed spectacles, that straddled his nose.
One of his fore-hoofs was thrust into the safe, where
his bills receivable were hived, and the other into
his pocket, among the loose change and bills there.
His ears were pricked forward with a brisk, sensitive
smartness. In a world where prize pork was
the best excellence, he would have carried off all
the premiums.

“I stepped into the next office in the street, and
a mild-faced, genial man, also a large and opulent
merchant, asked me my business in such a tone,
that I instantly looked through my spectacles, and
saw a land flowing with milk and honey. There I

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

pitched my tent, and staid till the good man died,
and his business was discontinued.

“But while there,” said Titbottom, and his voice
trembled away into a sigh, “I first saw Preciosa.
Despite the spectacles, I saw Preciosa. For days,
for weeks, for months, I did not take my spectacles
with me. I ran away from them, I threw them up
on high shelves, I tried to make up my mind to
throw them into the sea, or down the well. I could
not, I would not, I dared not, look at Preciosa through
the spectacles. It was not possible for me deliberately
to destroy them; but I awoke in the night,
and could almost have cursed my dear old grandfather
for his gift.

“I sometimes escaped from the office, and sat for
whole days with Preciosa. I told her the strange
things I had seen with my mystic glasses. The
hours were not enough for the wild romances which
I raved in her ear. She listened, astonished and
appalled. Her blue eyes turned upon me with
sweet deprecation. She clung to me, and then
withdrew, and fled fearfully from the room.

“But she could not stay away. She could not
resist my voice, in whose tones burnt all the love
that filled my heart and brain. The very effort to
resist the desire of seeing her as I saw everybody
else, gave a frenzy and an unnatural tension to my

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

feeling and my manner. I sat by her side, looking
into her eyes, smoothing her hair, folding her to my
heart, which was sunken deep and deep—why not
for ever?—in that dream of peace. I ran from her
presence, and shouted, and leaped with joy, and sat
the whole night through, thrilled into happiness by
the thought of her love and loveliness, like a windharp,
tightly strung, and answering the airiest sigh
of the breeze with music.

“Then came calmer days—the conviction of deep
love settled upon our lives—as after the hurrying,
heaving days of spring, comes the bland and benignant
summer.

“ `It is no dream, then, after all, and we are
happy,' I said to her, one day; and there came no
answer, for happiness is speechless.

“ `We are happy, then,' I said to myself, `there
is no excitement now. How glad I am that I can
now look at her through my spectacles.'

“I feared least some instinct should warn me to
beware. I escaped from her arms, and ran home
and seized the glasses, and bounded back again to
Preciosa. As I entered the room I was heated, my
head was swimming with confused apprehensions,
my eyes must have glared. Preciosa was frightened,
and rising from her seat, stood with an inquiring
glance of surprise in her eyes.

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

“But I was bent with frenzy upon my purpose.
I was merely aware that she was in the room. I
saw nothing else. I heard nothing. I cared for
nothing, but to see her through that magic glass,
and feel at once all the fulness of blissful perfection
which that would reveal. Preciosa stood before the
mirror, but alarmed at my wild and eager movements,
unable to distinguish what I had in my
hands, and seeing me raise them suddenly to my
face, she shrieked with terror, and fell fainting upon
the floor, at the very moment that I placed the
glasses before my eyes, and beheld—myself, reflected
in the mirror, before which she had been
standing.

“Dear madam,” cried Titbottom, to my wife,
springing up and falling back again in his chair,
pale and trembling, while Prue ran to him and took
his hand, and I poured out a glass of water—“I saw
myself.”

There was silence for many minutes. Prue laid
her hand gently upon the head of our guest, whose
eyes were closed, and who breathed softly like an
infant in sleeping. Perhaps, in all the long years of
anguish since that hour, no tender hand had touched
his brow, nor wiped away the damps of a bitter sorrow.
Perhaps the tender, maternal fingers of my
wife soothed his weary head with the conviction

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

that he felt the hand of his mother playing with the
long hair of her boy in the soft West India morning.
Perhaps it was only the natural relief of expressing
a pent-up sorrow.

When he spoke again, it was with the old subdued
tone, and the air of quaint solemnity.

“These things were matters of long, long ago,
and I came to this country soon after. I brought
with me, premature age, a past of melancholy memories,
and the magic spectacles. I had become
their slave. I had nothing more to fear. Having
seen myself, I was compelled to see others, properly
to understand my relations to them. The lights that
cheer the future of other men had gone out for me;
my eyes were those of an exile turned backwards
upon the receding shore, and not forwards with hope
upon the ocean.

“I mingled with men, but with little pleasure.
There are but many varieties of a few types. I did
not find those I came to clearer-sighted that those I
had left behind. I heard men called shrewd and
wise, and report said they were highly intelligent
and successful. My finest sense detected no aroma
of purity and principle; but I saw only a fungus
that had fattened and spread in a night. They went
to the theatres to see actors upon the stage. I went
to see actors in the boxes, so consummately cunning,

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

that others did not know they were acting, and they
did not suspect it themselves.

“Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misanthropical.
My dear friends, do not forget that I
had seen myself. That made me compassionate not
cynical.

“Of course, I could not value highly the ordinary
standards of success and excellence. When I went
to church and saw a thin, blue, artificial flower, or
a great sleepy cushion expounding the beauty of
holiness to pews full of eagles, half-eagles, and three-pences,
however adroitly concealed they might be in
broadcloth and boots: or saw an onion in an Easter
bonnet weeping over the sins of Magdalen, I did not
feel as they felt who saw in all this, not only propriety
but piety.

“Or when at public meetings an eel stood up on
end, and wriggled and squirmed lithely in every
direction, and declared that, for his part, he went in
for rainbows and hot water—how could I help seeing
that he was still black and loved a slimy pool?

“I could not grow misanthropical when I saw
in the eyes of so many who were called old, the
gushing fountains of eternal youth, and the light of
an immortal dawn, or when I saw those who were
esteemed unsuccessful and aimless, ruling a fair realm
of peace and plenty, either in their own hearts, or

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

in another's—a realm and princely possession for
which they had well renounced a hopeless search
and a belated triumph.

“I knew one man who had been for years a by-word
for having sought the philosopher's stone. But
I looked at him through the spectacles and saw a
satisfaction in concentrated energies, and a tenacity
arising from devotion to a noble dream which was
not apparent in the youths who pitied him in the
aimless effeminacy of clubs, nor in the clever gentlemen
who cracked their thin jokes upon him over
a gossiping dinner.

“And there was your neighbor over the way,
who passes for a woman who has failed in her career,
because she is an old maid. People wag solemn
heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake
in not marrying the brilliant and famous man
who was for long years her suitor. It is clear that
no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The
young people make their tender romances about her
as they watch her, and think of her solitary hours of
bitter regret and wasting longing, never to be satisfied.

“When I first came to town I shared this sympathy,
and pleased my imagination with fancying her
hard struggle with the conviction that she had lost
all that made life beautiful. I supposed that if I had

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

looked at her through my spectacles, I should see
that it was only her radiant temper which so illuminated
her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy
sables.

“But when, one day, I did raise my glasses, and
glanced at her, I did not see the old maid whom
we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman
whose nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone,
and birds sang, and flowers bloomed for ever.
There were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes,
but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw
her blush when that old lover passed by, or paused
to speak to her, but it was only the sign of delicate
feminine consciousness. She knew his love, and
honored it, although she could not understand it
nor return it. I looked closely at her, and I saw
that although all the world had exclaimed at her
indifference to such homage, and had declared
it was astonishing she should lose so fine a match,
she would only say simply and quietly—

“ `If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love
him, how could I marry him?'

“Could I be misanthropical when I saw such
fidelity, and dignity, and simplicity?

“You may believe that I was especially curious
to look at that old lover of hers, through my glasses.
He was no longer young, you know, when I came,

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

and his fame and fortune were secure. Certainly I
have heard of few men more beloved, and of none
more worthy to be loved. He had the easy manner
of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a poet,
and the charitable judgment of a wide-traveller.
He was accounted the most successful and most
unspoiled of men. Handsome, brilliant, wise, tender,
graceful, accomplished, rich, and famous, I
looked at him, without the spectacles, in surprise,
and admiration, and wondered how your neighbor
over the way had been so entirely untouched by
his homage. I watched their intercourse in society,
I saw her gay smile, her cordial greeting; I marked
his frank address, his lofty courtesy. Their manner
told no tales. The eager world was baulked, and I
pulled out my spectacles.

“I had seen her already, and now I saw him.
He lived only in memory, and his memory was a
spacious and stately palace. But he did not oftenest
frequent the banqueting hall, where were endless
hospitality and feasting,—nor did he loiter
much in the reception rooms, where a throng of
new visitors was for ever swarming,—nor did he
feed his vanity by haunting the apartment in which
were stored the trophies of his varied triumphs,—
nor dream much in the great gallery hung with
pictures of his travels.

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

“From all these lofty halls of memory he constantly
escaped to a remote and solitary chamber,
into which no one had ever penetrated. But my
fatal eyes, behind the glasses, followed and entered
with him, and saw that the chamber was a chapel.
It was dim, and silent, and sweet with perpetual
incense that burned upon an altar before a picture
forever veiled. There, whenever I chanced to look,
I saw him kneel and pray; and there, by day and
by night, a funeral hymn was chanted.

“I do not believe you will be surprised that I
have been content to remain a deputy book-keeper.
My spectacles regulated my ambition, and I early
learned that there were better gods than Plutus.
The glasses have lost much of their fascination now,
and I do not often use them. But sometimes the
desire is irresistible. Whenever I am greatly interested,
I am compelled to take them out and see
what it is that I admire.

“And yet—and yet,” said Titbottom, after a
pause, “I am not sure that I thank my grandfather.”

Prue had long since laid away her work, and had
heard every word of the story. I saw that the
dear woman had yet one question to ask, and had
been earnestly hoping to hear something that
would spare her the necessity of asking. But

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

Titbottom had resumed his usual tone, after the momentary
excitement, and made no further allusion
to himself. We all sat silently; Titbottom's eyes
fastened musingly upon the carpet, Prue looking
wistfully at him, and I regarding both.

It was past midnight, and our guest arose to go.
He shook hands quietly, made his grave Spanish
bow to Prue, and, taking his hat, went towards the
front door. Prue and I accompanied him. I saw
in her eyes that she would ask her question. And
as Titbottom opened the door, I heard the low
words:

“And Preciosa?”

Titbottom paused. He had just opened the door,
and the moonlight streamed over him as he stood,
turning back to us.

“I have seen her but once since. It was in
church, and she was kneeling, with her eyes closed,
so that she did not see me. But I rubbed the
glasses well, and looked at her, and saw a white
lily, whose stem was broken, but which was fresh,
and luminous, and fragrant still.”

“That was a miracle,” interrupted Prue.

“Madam, it was a miracle,” replied Titbottom,
“and for that one sight I am devoutly grateful for
my grandfather's gift. I saw, that although a
flower may have lost its hold upon earthly

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

moisture, it may still bloom as sweetly, fed by the dews
of heaven.”

The door closed, and he was gone. But as Prue
put her arm in mine, and we went up stairs together,
she whispered in my ear:

“How glad I am that you don't wear spectacles.”

p535-156

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