Fay, Theodore S. (Theodore Sedgwick), 1807-1898 [1834], The author, from The Atlantic club-book (Harper & Brothers) [word count] [eaf092].
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Front matter
Covers, Edges and Spine
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Preliminaries
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THE
ATLANTIC CLUB-BOOK:
BEING
SKETCHES IN PROSE AND VERSE,
BY
VARIOUS AUTHORS.
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good night?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
Nor fade at last
—Herrick
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER AND BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET.
1834.
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Acknowledgment
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834,
By Harper and Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office, of the Southern District of New-York.
PRINTED BY GEORGE P. SCOTT & CO.
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CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
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PAGE
Lines—By Fitz-Greene Halleck 13
Charles Maitland, or the Mess-Chest—By William Leggett 16
The Discarded—By Fitz-Greene Halleck 35
Pencillings by the Way—By N. P. Willis 38
The Sabbath-Bell—By Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney 52
The Author—By Theodore S. Fay 54
To Walter Bowne, Esq.—By Fitz-Greene Halleck 83
Biography of Jacob Hays—By William Cox 86
August—By William C. Bryant 92
The Ocean—By William P. Palmer 96
Lines—By N. P. Willis 106
The Will and the Lawsuit—By William C. Baldwin 107
The Repulse—By Samuel Woodworth 117
A Night on the Banks of the Tennessee—By D. Sealfield 118
The Indian Chief Red Bird—By William P. Palmer 144
The Fight of Hell-Kettle—By Tyrone Power 146
Apologue—By Samuel Woodworth 158
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Fire and Water, or the Pirate's Night Cruise—By William
Leggett 160
Stanzas—By Mrs. Emma C. Embury 179
A Kentuckian's Account of a Panther-Fight—By James H.
Hackett 180
A Vision of the Hudson—By William Cox 183
A Country Ramble—By William Cox 189
Astronomical Speculations—By William Cox 198
The Rivals; a Tale of Love and Marriage—By William
Cox 206
Specimens of a free and easy prose Translation of Thomson's
Seasons—By William Cox 220
Little Florence Gray—By N. P. Willis 248
A Charcoal Sketch of Pot Pie Palmer—By Edward Sanford 251
The Beech-Tree—By Robert M. Bird 268
A true though tough Yarn, about Pattygoney and other
matters—By Tyrone Power 270
Main text
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THE AUTHOR. BY THEODORE S. FAY. THE INTRODUCTION.
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“Prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail,
Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,
Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.”
I WALKED out one summer afternoon, to amuse
myself after the troubles of a long and toilsome
day, spent in poring over musty volumes of the law.
As I rose from my fatiguing studies, and breathed
the fresh, free air of heaven, I enjoyed that natural
cheerfulness which is always felt when the elastic
mind soars from the object to which it has been
bound down, and sports away at pleasure through
the regions of fancy. After having groped among
the shadowy labyrinths of ambiguous science, wearied
and bewildered in its mazy path, I rejoiced to
be in a lighter sphere, amid merriment and bustling
adventure—where the brilliant confusion of Broadway
gave a livelier character to my meditations,
and the rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed girls who passed
by me imparted a sweeter sensation to my mind.
It had been extremely warm and sultry, but now
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a light breeze cooled the air; the pigeons pecked
and cooed and sported about in the shade; a privileged
dog might now and then be observed trotting
along behind his master, panting and tired, with
his tongue hanging from his unclosed mouth, and
those unpoetical animals in the records of our Common
Council, denominated—hogs, grunted through
their long and dreamless slumber, in all the glory
of independence and mud.
It is an old maxim that something may be learned
in whatever situation we are placed. The darkness
of a solitary dungeon improves the contemplative
disposition, and the mid-day splendor of the
city is replete with instruction.
The vast and wonderful variety of face and
figure which on every side met my view, afforded
an amusement for my ramble, of which I did not
fail to take advantage.
Sometimes brushed by me the smart beau, ready
dressed, and polished for his lady's eye; his new,
shining hat, upon a head each particular hair of
which possessed its assigned station, like well disciplined
soldiers at a military post. In dark contrast
behind him dragged the lazy sweep—wrapping his
dusky mantle around his gloomy form, the personification
of a moonless night. The man of broad
dimensions waddled before the thin, consumptive,
meagre wretch—poverty and plenty, emblematic of
the rapid vicissitudes of life. Bullies, thinking of
thunder and lightning—Dandies, thinking of nothing
but themselves—and fools, thinking of nothing
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at all, went one after another before my observing
sight. Editors, composing extemporaneous editorial
articles—Players, conning over their half-learned
parts—Lawyers, calculating what no one
but lawyers could calculate—and Doctors in rueful,
but resigned anticipation of their patient's demise,
passed by, and disappeared like Macbeth's visions
in the regions of Hecate. Now came a crowd of
“Noisy children, just let loose from school,”
in high glee at having escaped from the vicissitudes
of their mimic world—some from the troubles
of incomprehensible ancient languages, and lines
terrible to scan—and other young literary Bonapartes,
who “had fought and conquered” whole
troops of mathematical problems, who had surmounted
obstacles seemingly insurmountable, and
labored far up the rugged hill of science in spite of
the brambles and shadows with which it so plentifully
abounds. Then I beheld the philosopher, in
his ordinary habiliments, scrupulously plain, careful
to owe no portion of his celebrity to the vanities of
dress—his brow clouded with a sublime frown,
which spoke of crucibles, air-pumps, powerful acids,
and electrical machines—pacing his steady way,
with measured strides—all science and severity from
head to foot. After him came the poet, in a poetical
dress, with short sleeves to his coat, short legs to his
pantaloons, and short allowances for his hunger—
his hat was put back from his forehead in negligent
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grace—there was no awkwardness in his moving
attitudes—no rose upon his thoughtful cheek—and
no cravat around his neck; but bewildered, Byronlike,
and brimfull of imagination, and wrapped up
in splendid visions, invisible to all but himself—
through the various multitude he pursued his unerring
career
“In lofty madness, meditating song,”
The richly dressed, fashionable belle dashed by me
like a blazing meteor, sparkling and flashing in
transitory brightness—and in bashful beauty, like
some softly-passing dream, followed the sylph-like
figure of a charming girl, with eyes cast down in
the modesty of merit, and cheeks blushing at the
earnest gaze which their loveliness attracted. It
passed away from before me like the evanescent
hopes of youth, and gave place to a person who
monopolized all my attention. It was the short,
prim form of a middle-aged, negligently dressed
man, who wore an air of drollery, entirely irresistible.
As he passed, maiden purity and philosophic
sternness lent the tribute of a smile, and the little
boys paused from the fascinations of their hoops and
marbles to look and laugh. The clouded visage of
misfortune, by his ludicrous appearance, was cheated
into a temporary illumination, and in the wildness
of my disenthralled fancy, methought the very
birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, or, in
plain English, the pigeons and the pigs, gave a
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glance of merry astonishment upon the object of
my notice.
His coat (for although he was an author he had
a coat) had once been of handsome black cloth, but
its charms had vanished “like fairy gifts fading
away”—many winters had scattered their snows
upon the shoulder-blades and elbows, from the pinnacles
of the latter of which peeped something not
very white, concerning which I had my own peculiar
calculation. The collar, I mean of his coat,
for that of his shirt had long since retired to the
dignity of private life, beneath the complicated folds
of his slovenly cravat—by the by, it would be well
if some of our political dirty shirt collars would
follow its examples—I say, the collar of his coat, by
long acquaintance with the rim of a hat, venerable
on account of its antiquity, had assumed a gloss
which was by no means the gloss of novelty, and
a dark brown waistcoat was buttoned carelessly
around a body that seemed emptier than the head
upon which it had depended for support. His pantaloons,
“Weak, but intrepid—sad, but unsubdued,”
were shrivelled tightly over a brace of spindleshanks,
withered, weary, and forlorn, that would
have put Daddy Longlegs to the blush. Uncleaned
pumps covered every part of his feet but the toes,
which came forth to enjoy the fresh summer breezes,
shoes and stockings to the contrary notwithstanding.
A pair of tattered kid gloves, “neat but not
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gaudy,” fluttered about his hands, so that it would
be difficult immediately to discover whether the
glove held the hand or the hand the glove.
But it was not the dress which gained him so
many broad stares and oblique glances, for our city
annually receives a great increase of literary inhabitants,
but the air—the “Je ne sais quoi”—the
nameless something—dignity in rags, and self-importance
with holes at the elbow. It was the
quintessence of drollery which sat upon his thin,
smirking lip—which was visible on his crooked,
copper-tinged, and snuff-bedaubed organ of smelling,
and existed in the small eyes of piercing gray.
As I love to study human nature in person, and
have always believed the world was the best book
to read, I formed a determination to become acquainted
with him of the laughable aspect, and
proceeded to act in conformity thereto. I was striving
to hit upon some plausible method of entering
into conversation with him, when fate being in a
singularly good humor, took it into her whimsical
head to favor my design. As I walked by him
near the end of the pavement, when the multitude
were by no means so numerous, and their place
was supplied by the warbling birds, the bleating
lambs, and all those sounds which constitute the
melody of country breezes, with a slight inclination
of his pericranium he turned towards me and
spoke.
“Pray, sir, can you favor me with the hour?”
“It is four o'clock,” answered I, “I believe—but
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am not sure; walk on with me, and we will inquire
of yonder gentleman.”
“You are excessively good,” said he, with a smile,
which gave much more expression to his face—“I
am afraid I give you an infinite degree of trouble;
you are enjoying rural felicity, poetically correct—
pray, do not let me interrupt you.”
As he spoke the clock struck.
“Fortune favors the deserving,” I remarked, as
a continuation of the converse so happily commenced.
He spoke with more familiarity—“Upon my
honor, sir, you are very complimentary: if every
body thought of me as you do, or at least, if they
thought as much of my productions, I flatter myself
I should have had a watch for myself.”
“I'll warrant me,” I replied, “many have the
means of ascertaining time better than yourself,
who know not how to use it half so well.”
“Sir,” said he with a bow, “if you will buckle
fortune to my back—but you don't flatter me—no,
no. My excellent, good friend, you have much
more penetration than people in general. Sir, I
have been abused—vilely, wretchedly, da—, but
I won't swear—I don't follow the fashions so much
as to make a fool of myself; but on the honor of a
perfect gentleman, I do assure you, sir, I have been
very strangely used, and abused, too.”
“I have no doubt, sir,” observed I, “but that
your biography would be interesting.”
“My biography—you've hit the mark; I wish I
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had a biographer—a Dunlap, a Boswell, a Virgil, or
a Homer—he should begin his book with the line
—“Multum ille et terris, jactatus et alto,
Vi superum.”
I have been a very football, sir, for the gods to play
with.”
“Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ,”
said I, willing to humor the pedantry which I already
began to discover, “but the race is not always
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
“Aha! sir,” he exclaimed with a gentle squeeze
of my hand, “I know what you are—some kindred
spirit—one of those kind, high beings who come
upon this world `like angel visits, few and far between.
' I see it, sir, in your eye,” continued he,
with a gesture that might have spurred even Miss
Kemble to new exertions. “I see it in your eye—
charity, benevolence, affection, philosophy, and science.
Ah! my dear sir, I know you are better
than the rest of mankind; you've done a great
deal of good in the world, and will do a great deal
more—
“You portioned maids—apprenticed orphans blest—
The old who labor, and the young who rest:
Is there a contest? enter but your door,
Balked are the courts, and contest is no more;
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.”
“Sir?” ejaculated I, not very well pleased with
this last slash at my beloved profession—
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—“Or, perhaps,” continued he with increasing
rapidity of speech, “you are a lawyer, my dear
sir,—the grand path to political glory—sweet occupation;
to put out the strong arm, and save drowning
innocence; to hurl the thunderbolt of eloquence
against proud and wealthy oppression; to weave a
charm of safety around defenceless beauty; and
catch clumsy, and otherwise unconquerable power
in your mazy net of law—Pray, sir, can you lend
me a shilling?”
I handed him the money, and he turned to be
off, when I seized him by the arm, and asked him
where he was going? He laid one hand upon his
receptacle for food, and with the other pointed to a
tavern, before which hung the sign “Entertainment
for Man and Horse.”
“My dinner—my dinner—my dinner!” said he,
“I haven't eaten a particle these three weeks; poverty
and poetry, sir, go arm and arm, sworn friends
and companions, through this vale of tears; one
starves the body and the other rarefies the soul—
my way has been rough and rugged as the Rock-away
turnpike road, and misfortune jerks me along
as if life went upon badly made cog-wheels. Will
you be so kind as to lend me another shilling?
I want a dinner for once in my life—beefsteaks and
onions, butter, gravy, and potatoes—
“Hæc olim meminisse juvabit.”
It will be a grand era in my poetical career.”
There was something so exquisitely whimsical
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in the fellow's demeanor, that I determined to spend
the afternoon in his company. I never shall forget
the look and squeeze which he bestowed upon me
when I proposed that we should adjourn to the inn,
and dine together at my expense. He seized hold
of my hand, and drew himself up erect in all the
enthusiasm of poetic madness—
“Sir,” said he, informing me that he could not
speak, with a rapidity of pronunciation, which reminded
me of a horse running away—“Sir, Mr.
a-a-a—my dear, dear friend—my tongue falters—
I can't speak—I'm dumb—gratitude has shut up
the sluices of my heart; and the cataract of my
oratorical powers is dried up—pro tem. But it
will come directly—Stop till I get in the house—
“Arma virumque cano.”
that is to say, I'll tell you my history; but just at
this moment,” continued he, smacking his lips, and
his little eyes dilating with the eager anticipation
of epicurean delights, yet to come—“just at this
crisis,
“Oh! guide me from this horrid scene,
These high arched walks, and alleys green.”
then with a slight pause and smile,
“Let's run the race—he be the winner,
Who gets there first, and eats his dinner.”
As he spoke, he pulled me forcibly by the arm,
and I found myself in a neat, clean room, with the
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hungry poet fastened close to my side. The conversation
which occurred between us, and the history
of his literary vicissitudes, must be the subject
of the next chapter.
CHAPTER II. THE NOVEL.
“Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay,
Yet eat in dreams the custard of the day,
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.”
Though no spirit is so lofty but that starvation
can bend it, yet in the tranquillity of our replenished
bodies we are always wicked enough to enjoy the
extravagant emotions which agitate authors and
other hungry individuals, when by any strange
variety of life they happen to get a good dinner.
My friend, who had delighted me with his volubility
of speech, no sooner perceived that the preparations
were ended, than he fell upon his defenceless
prize like a lion on his prey. Poetry and
prose, fanciful quotations and lofty ideas, for a time
were banished from his busy brain. Our conversation,
the whole burthen of which had at first been
borne by him, was now lost in the superior fascinations
of beefsteak and onions; and a few unintelligible
monosyllables, uttered from a mouth crammed
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full of various articles, were the only attempts made
toward an interchange of soul.
The enthusiasm of his attack began at length to
abate, and the fire of anticipated delight to give
way to an expression less anxious and fluctuating.
The discomfited steak lay before him mangled and
in ruins. The onions shed a fainter perfume from
the half-cleared dish—and the potatoes were done
in the strictest sense of the word. The sated author
threw himself back in his chair, and exclaimed,
“The deed is done—the dinner is eaten—Fidus
Achates—my beloved friend—I feel I know not
how—a strange combination of various sensations
gives me a new confidence to brave the storms of
life, or to look back upon the dangers already
passed. And now, that I am comparatively composed,
and have time to think, you will do me the
favor to answer me, what in the name of all that's
beautiful in prose, poetry, or real life, induced you
to give this strange conclusion to a hungry day?”
“Because,” I replied, “your face pleased me more
than all the others which I saw—there was talent
and taste in your very dress.”
“Ah come,” said he, casting a slight glance upon
his well-worn garments, “that won't do—I am
perfectly aware that my external appearance is
by no means prepossessing, but what of that?
`she must marry me and not my clothes.' I cannot
help it, if fate, in her unequal distribution of
mutual effects, gives you a pair of breeches whose
use is to come—and me one whose value has passed
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—I don't feel ashamed of what a superior power has
done for me. It is the mark of merit to be poor.
Homer was poor—Johnson was poor—and I am
poor. Besides, a rich man cannot enter into the
kingdom of heaven—that's flat.”
“If poverty,” said I, “is a passport through the
happy gates, then—”
“Then,” interrupted he, “I should have been
there as soon as I commenced my literary life; for
though self-praise is no recommendation, I flatter
myself I am as poor as any man in New-York, and
what's more, I confess it—I'm proud of it”—
“After dinner,” said I.
“Oh, you're a wag—but rich or poor, I've had my
hopes and disappointments as well as the rest of
mankind. Sunshine and shadow have chased each
other over my path—and now, by your kindness, I
am warming myself in the rays of benevolence
and friendship. Ah, it is a treat for me, I do assure
you, to find the true feeling of generosity—the real,
genuine virtue, cleansed from the ore of vanity and
ostentation, and so unlike the pompous charity of
the common world,
“Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless pouring through the plain,
Health to the sick and solace to the swain.”
“You are the man of my mind, and to you I will
speak my sorrows, although my parched lips almost
refuse them utterance”—and he cast a sidelong
glance at an empty bottle which stood near us on
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a table. I took the hint, and called for some wine.
He swallowed a glass full, smacked his lips, and
assuming a serious and important air, thus commenced
the narrative of his literary horrors:
“Sir, my name is William Lackwit, Esquire. I
am an author, whose greatest failure has been in
not getting his works into notice, but a fatal oblivion
seemed always to engulf my productions in
its lethean stream—and fate, I do sincerely believe,
has been trying upon me some philosophical experiment,
to see how many privations human nature
could bear. I have been tossed about, sir, like a
juggler's ball—and in all the poetical labyrinths in
which I have been lost, memory cannot behold
One solitary resting place,
Nor bring me back one branch of grace.
“I was cast upon the world when about seventeen
years of age, and possessing a vast share of
vanity, which, by the by, is the staff of an author's
life, I determined to write for a living. Animated
by the fame of great men who had lived before me,
I plunged deeply into literary madness, and fell a
victim to the present prevailing epidemic, the cacoethes
scribendi, which is now sweeping many young
gentlemen from professional existence. I wrote for
the newspapers, but made no noise—heard no approbation—
and `last but not least,' received no pay.
Sometimes, perchance, a very particularly complaisant
friend would laud the little offsprings of my
pen; but it did not gain me bread and butter, and
could not satisfy the cravings of hungry nature.
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With a full heart and an empty stomach, I relinquished
my attempt, and bade farewell to my sweet
lyre, in a manner that, I thought, could not fail of
attracting universal sympathy. I walked out the
next morning, expecting to meet many a softened
heart and friendly hand, but the bell-man heaved
his unaltered cry as he did the day before; the carts
rattled along with their usual thundering rapidity;
the busy crowd shuffled by me as if I was not in
existence; and the sun shone upon the earth, and
the changing clouds floated through the air, exactly
as they were wont to do before I determined to shed
no more music upon an unfeeling world.
“At length I recovered from my disappointment,
and issued a little paper of my own; but it dropped
dead from the press, as silently as falls the unnoticed
flake of snow: no buzz of admiration followed me
as I went; no pretty black-eyed girl whispered
`that's he' as I passed; and if any applause was
elicited by my effort, it was so still, and so slily
managed, that one would scarcely have supposed it
was there.
“Something must be done, thought I—while the
great reward of literary fame played far off before
my imagination, a glorious prize, to reach which no
exertion would be too great—I walked to my little
room, where a remnant of my family's possessions
enabled me to keep my chin above the ocean of life.
In the solitary silence of my tattered and ill-furnished
apartment, I sat me down upon a broken bench,
and lost myself in `rumination sad' as to what
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course I should next pursue. Suddenly, and like
a flash of lightning, an idea struck me with almost
force enough to knock me down—I'll write a novel—
I'll take the public whether they will or not—
`fortuna favet integros,' and if fame won't come to
me, I'll go to fame. I don't wonder that I did not
succeed before. The public want something sublime,
and I'll give it to them wholesale. I'll come
upon them by surprise; I'll combine the beauties of
Addison with the satire of Swift, Goldsmith's sweetness
and Pope's fire. I'll have darkness and storm,
battle, treachery, murder, thunder, and lightning: it
must take. The author of a novel like this will make
an immense fortune. Old ivy-grown castles, moonlight
landscapes, Spanish feathers, and Italian serenades,
floated in brilliant confusion through my enamoured
fancy. Daggers and despair, eloquence, passion,
and fire, mingled in a delightful cloud of imagination,
and heaved and changed in the dim and dreary
distance like a magnificent vision of enchantment,
which only wanted the breath of my genius to fan
it into shape and exquisite beauty.
“At it I went, `tooth and nail,' and watched over
my young offspring with as much fondness as the
mother bends over the cradle that contains her only
boy. Already I began to hold up my head, and
think how differently people would look at me if
they only knew who I was, and what I was about
to do. The splendid dresses, the ten dollar beaver
hats turned upside in a basin of water, the handsome
canes, and polished Wellington boots, which
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daily obtruded themselves upon my eager eye, as if
in mockery of my miserable apparel, I began to look
upon as objects already my own. Was I thirsty and
hungry while musing on the variety of macaronies
and cream-tarts, cocoanut-cakes and coffee, in a confectioner's
shop? `Only wait,' thought I to myself,
`only wait till I get out my new novel.' Was my
coat threadbare and my hat old, only wait for my
new novel. Did a coach and four dash by me, footman
taking his ease behind, and driver with new
hat and white top boots? Drive away, coachee,
thought I, drive away, but only wait for my new
novel. Extreme impatience kept me on pins and
needles till my work was done. 'Twas indeed `a
consummation devoutly to be wished.' A kind of
restless anticipation kept me in continual excitement
till the development of my greatness, or what
was the same thing, the publication of my work.
“At length it was finished, and off it went, two
volumes duodecimo, with a modest blue cover, and
its name on the back. Long enough, thought I,
have I labored in obscurity, but now—I pulled
up my collar (it was a long time ago) and walked
majestically along in all the pride of greatness
incog.
“Alas! alas! 'twas but a dagger of the mind. It
dazzled for a moment before my enraptured sight,
and left me again to descend into the nothingness
from which, in fancy, I had risen. Although it was
printed and published, with a preface artfully acknowledging
it to be unworthy public patronage;
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although I wrote a puff myself—do you know what
a puff is?”
“An author's opinion of his own works, expressed
in a daily paper, by himself or his friends,” I answered.
“Right,” continued he, “although I wrote a puff
myself, informing the public that rumors were afloat
that the new novel, which created such a sensation
both abroad and at home, was from the well-known
pen of the celebrated William Lackwit, Esq., poet,
editor, orator, and author in general—although I
paid the editor of one of our most fashionable evening
papers six shillings for reading it himself, and
six and sixpence for recommending it to the perusal
of his subscribers, `credat Judœus appellas'—it
`went dead,' as the Irishman says; a newspaper
squib, a little pop-gun of a thing, first brought it
into disrepute, and a few would-be critics ridiculed it
to death. Herbert and Rogers, merchant tailors,
lost a customer and I a fortune, and my unhappy
book was used to carry greasy sausages and bad
butter to the illiterate herd, who took more care of
their stomachs than of their heads, and liked meat
better than mind. Oh! that ever I was an author:
oh! that ever I panted after literary fame. I have
chased the rainbow reputation over crag and cliff.
I have waded through rivers of distress, and braved
storms of poverty and scorn, to get one grasp at the
beautiful vision; and though I see it yet, as lovely
and as bright as ever, yet still it is as cheating, and
still as far from my reach. My next trial was of a
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higher nature, which, after we have again partaken
of your excellent Madeira, I will relate to you”—
And he proceeded to describe that which I shall
lay before the indulgent reader in the next chapter.
CHAPTER III. THE PLAY.
“Fierce champion, Fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears;
Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake,
Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling's sake.”
My eccentric companion proceeded in his story,
gathering new animation as he recapitulated the
battles which he had fought, and the victories which
he might have won.
“For a long time, sir, after the melancholy catastrophe
of my novel, I was completely discouraged.
I felt an indifference towards the world. I had
soared so high upon the wings of hope that the fall
almost broke my heart; but soon the disappointment
began to lose its bitterness, and I received a
consolation (which, wicked as it was, I could not
repress) in discovering that hundreds of unsuccessful
authors were exactly in my condition: then
I remembered that as great fame, once acquired,
would be everlasting, I could not expect to acquire
it without immense trouble and assiduous application.
Gradually I shook off the hateful fetters of
gloomy despair, and, like some deluded slave, to a
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false woman's charms, I allowed cheating hope to
lead me captive again. My brain began to effervesce
with exuberance of imagination, and gave
promise of something more exquisite still. Novelwriting
was out of the question: I had manufactured
one, and if the public did not like it, they
might let it alone; and so they did—the more
shame for them.
“I felt as proud as Lucifer in my defeat, and was
resolved never to compliment with another the
world who had used my last so villanously. No,
thought I, I'll write a play, and give Shakspeare
and Otway a little rest. If I cannot get in the
great temple one way, I'll try another; and, with
increasing avidity, I went at it again. It was not
long before I began to entertain the idea that my
mind was peculiarly adapted for dramatic writing.
I was not formed to wade through the dull drudgery
of novel descriptions—to expatiate upon little rivulets,
tinkling among big rocks—and amorous breezes
making love to sentimental green trees. In my
present avocation, the azure heavens, the frowning
mountain, the broad ocean, the shadowy forest, and
`all that sort of thing,' would fall beneath the
painter's care: skies would be manufactured to give
light to my heroes, and cities would sprout up, in
which they could act their adventures. My play
would present a great field for triumph, and `young,
blushing Merit, and neglected Worth,' must be seen,
and consequently admired. Now would the embodied
visions of my fancy go to the hearts of the
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public through their ears, as well as their eyes, and
genius would wing its sparkling way amid the
thundering acclamations of thousands of admiring
spectators. `Now,' said I to myself, `I have the eel
of glory by the tail, and it shall not escape me, slippery
as it is.'
“With a perseverance which elicited praise from
myself, if from nobody else, I mounted my Pegasus,
and jogged along this newly discovered road to
immortality. The external and common world
melted from my mind when I sat down to my task,
and, although it was evanescent as poets' pleasures
generally are, few men enjoyed more happiness
than I—as the tattered trappings of my poor garret
seemed dipped in the enchanting magnificence of
my dreams, and I rioted in visions of white paper
snow-storms, and dramatic thunder and lightning.
I sought every opportunity for stage effect—to
have trap-doors and dungeons, unexpected assassinations,
and resurrections more unexpected still.
“My undertaking seemed very easy at first, but
I soon found myself bewildered amid difficulties
seriously alarming. At one time I brought a whole
army of soldiers on the stage, and made them fight
a prodigious battle, without discovering, till half the
poor fellows were slain, that the whole affair had
taken place in a lady's chamber! This was easily
remedied, but I experienced infinitely more trouble
with the next. I had formed a hero, in whom were
concentrated all the virtues, beauties, and accomplishments
of human kind: a real Sir William
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Wallace—gigantic in person and mind—who never
opened his lips but to speak blank verse—who did
not know that there was such a person as Fear on
the face of the globe, and could put a whole army
to flight by just offering to draw his sword. It was
my design artfully to lead him into the greatest extremes
of danger, and then artfully to lead him out
again; but, in the paroxysm of my enthusiasm, I
at length got him into a scrape from which no
human power could possibly extricate him.
“His enemies, determined not to give so terrible
a fellow the slightest chance of escape, had confined
him in a tremendous dungeon, deep, and walled
around on all sides, by lofty rocks and mountains
totally impenetrable. To this dreadful abode there
was only one little entrance, which was strictly
guarded by a band of soldiers, who were ordered
never to take their eyes off the door, and always to
keep their guns cocked. Now here was a predicament,
and I knew not what to do. The whole of
the preceding was so beautifully managed, that to
cut it out would be impossible. Yet there he was,
poor youth, without the slenderest hope of freedom,
cooped up among everlasting mountains, beneath
which Atlas himself might have groaned in vain.
What was I to do? He must be released. The
audience would expect it, as a common civility, that
I would not murder him before their eyes. It would
have been ungenteel to a degree. At length I hit
it, after having conceived almost inconceivable plans,
and vainly attempted to manage ponderous ideas
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which were too heavy for my use. I proposed to
introduce a ghost—a spirit, which would at once
please the pit, and be a powerful friend to the imprisoned
soldier.
“At the dead of the night, when he sat ruminating
on the vicissitudes of life, and spouting extemporaneous
blank-verse soliloquies, (at which I had spent
many midnight hours,) the genius of the mountain
comes down in a thunder cloud, and thus addresses
the pensive hero. You will be pleased to observe
the rude and natural dignity of language, which it
was a great point with me to preserve.
Genius.
Hero of earth, thine eyes look red with weeping.
Hero,
(laying his hand upon his sword.) Who says he e'er
saw Bamaloosa weep?
Gen.
Nay, hold thy tongue, and shut thy wide-oped jaw:
I come to save thee, if thou wilt be saved.
Hero.
I will not perish, if I help it can;
But who will cleave these cursed rocks apart,
And give me leave to leave this cursed place,
Where lizards crawl athwart my sinking flesh,
And bullfrogs jump, and toads do leap about?
Gen.
I—I can do whate'er I have a mind:
I am the genius of this lonesome place,
And I do think you might more manners have,
Than thus to speak to him that is your host.
Hero.
If thou art really what thou seem'st to be,
Just let me out of this infernal hole.
Oh! my dear fellow, take me hence away—
`My soul's in arms, impatient for the fray!'
Take me from deeds I've often thought upon,
Down deep in dreadful dungeons darkly done!
“The alliteration in the last line melts the tender
heart of the genius: he waves his hand in the air;
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his cloudy throne streams thunder and lightning
from every side; instantaneously a convulsion ensues;
the stage becomes the scene of general conflagration;
a number of small imps, and little devils,
fiery-breathed dragons, and red-nosed salamanders,
are seen sporting about in the confusion, till the
whole explodes, and out walks my man through a
prodigious crack in the mountain, which heals up
after him as he goes along. The consternation of
the guards may be imagined, but unless I had the
MS. here, I could not attempt to describe it.
“At length it was written, rehearsed, and advertised,
and its name, in great capitals, stared from
every brick wall and wooden fence in the city.
“Delightful anticipations of immortality began to
throng upon my mind, and I could almost hear
the various theatre cries of `bravo,' `encore,' and
`author.' With some trouble, I had prepared a
very handsome speech, to be spoken when I should
be called out, and practised bowing before a looking-glass
with great success. Indeed, by the time the
evening of representation arrived, I was prepared
for every triumph which fate could have in store for
me; and I had vowed an unalterable determination
not to lose my firmness of mind in the heaviest
flood of prosperity that could possibly pour in
upon me.
“The evening arrived—a fine, cool, moonlight
night. The stars twinkled upon me as I hastened
to the theatre, as if congratulating me from their
lofty stations in the sky, and the most refreshing
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breezes played around my head, methought, whispering
soft nonsense in my ear. I walked with a
proud step to the door, entered majestically, and took
my seat modestly.
“The house was already thronged with ladies
and gentlemen, with their various appendages of
quizzing-glasses and bamboo canes; and frequent
murmurs of impatience buzzed around, by which
I felt extremely flattered. The end of my troubles
seemed already at hand, and I thought Fame, on
her adamantine tablet, had already written `William
Lackwit, Esquire, Author in general,' in letters
too indelible for time itself to erase. Fear
faded away in the dazzling brilliancy of that
smiling multitude, and my soul floated about in
its delicious element of triumphant hope, with a
sensation such as arises after a good dose of exhilarating
gas.
“Alas! `'twas but a dream!' I soon perceived
that fortune frowned on my efforts, and had taken
the most undisguised method of blasting my hopes.
A most diabolical influenza had for some time
raged in the city, which on this very evening seemed
at its height. A convulsion of coughing kept the
whole audience in incessant confusion; and with
the most harrowing apprehensions, I listened to
noises of every description, from the faint, sneeze-like
effusion of some little girl's throat, to the deeptoned
and far-sounding bellow of the portly alderman.
Besides this, I had the pleasure to observe
some of my most devoted enemies scattered, as if
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intentionally, through the critical pit, scowling in
tenfold blackness upon the scene, and apparently
waiting in composed hatred, an opportunity to give
me `the goose.' Meditation raged high, as I observed
these significant and threatening appearances,
and I could scarcely have been in greater
trepidation if I had been attacked with hydrophobia
itself.
“The curtain rose soon, and my first characters
appeared; but, fire and fury! I did not recognize
them myself!
“The play proceeded, and a scene ensued which
gentlest moderation might denominate `murder,
most foul.' My dear sir, you can have no idea
of it. They had cut out my most beautiful sentiments.
The very identical remarks which I had
intended should bring the house down, were gone,
and `left not a trace behind.' One recited a speech
which was intended to have been spoken by another,
and he spouted one that should not have
been spoken at all. My finest specimens of rhetoric
failed, from their clumsy manner of delivery,
and all my wit missed fire. Oh! if you could have
seen them, like a pack of wild bulls in a garden of
flowers, breaking rudely over all those delicate
bushes of poetry, and trampling down the sweetest
roses in the field of literature. The prettily
turned expressions, which should have been carefully
breathed upon the audience, with a softened
voice and pensive eye, were bawled out in an unvaried,
monotonous tone of voice, and a face as
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passionless as a barber's block. The whole play was
destroyed.
“ `There was nip, and snip, and cut, and slish,
and slash,' till the first act ended, and then was a
slight hiss. `Cold drops of sweat stood on my
trembling flesh;' but I pulled my hat fiercely over
my beating brow, and, angry and desperate, prepared
for the brooding storm. On my mountain
scene I laid my principal dependence; and if that
failed me, `then welcome despair.' At last it came:
there was the dungeon and a man in it, with a
wig, which covered the greatest part of his real hair,
and a face sublimely cut and slashed over with a
piece of coal. Instead of the beautiful countenance
which had gleamed upon me in my poetic vision,
there was a thin, hump-backed little fellow, with a
tremendous pair of red whiskers, and a pug nose!
My fac-simile of Sir William Wallace with red
whiskers and a pug nose!! Sir, it threw me into
one of the most violent fevers I ever had. Besides
all these, `his face was dirty, and his hands unwashed;
' and he proceeded to give such a bombastic
flourish of his arm, and his voice rose to such a
high pitch, that he was hailed with loud laughter,
and shouts of `Make a bow, Johnny—make a bow,'
till my head reeled in delirious despair.
“But the language and stage effect might redeem
the errors of the actor, and I remained in a
delightful agony for the result. Lazy time at length
brought it upon the stage; but oh, ye gods! what
a fall was there! As the thunder-cloud and genius
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were floating gracefully down, one of the ropes
cracked, and the enchanter of the cavern hurt his
nose against the floor, notwithstanding a huge
pair of gilt pasteboard wings, which spread themselves
at his shoulders. He got up, however, and
went on till the explosion was to have taken
place: then he waved his wand, with an air
which was not intended to have been resisted;
but, miserabile dictu! the crack would not open,
and Bamaloosa trotted off by one of the side-scenes,
amidst hoots of derision from every part of
the house.
“The green curtain fell. A universal hiss, from
`the many-headed monster of the pit,' rung heavily
in my ears. I had seen my poor play murdered
and damned in one night, and it was enough to
quench all future hopes of literary eminence. I
rushed, desperate, from the spot, not choosing to
stay for the farce; and, in the confusion of unsuccessful
genius, I kicked two little red-headed fellows
into the gutter for asking of me a check.
“In the anguish of my disappointment, I dreamed
a combination of every thing horrible, to tantalize
and terrify my poor, tired brain; and I arose with a
head-ach and a heart-ach, and no very great opinion
of any one in the world, but myself.
“You have convinced me that generosity has
not taken French leave of every bosom, and I shall
always look back upon the moments I have spent
with you as bright exceptions to those of my past
life. And, now,” continued he, pocketing the
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remaining bone, putting a couple of potatoes in his
bosom, and taking a long draught of wine—“and
now, I trust, we are square: you have provided me
a dinner, and I have treated you to `a feast of
reason and a flow of soul.' If I see you again, `I
shall remember you were bountiful;' if not, God
bless you and yours.”
He gave me a hearty shake by the hand, and
darted from the room. I caught a glimpse of his
figure as he passed the window—and saw the poor
author no more.
Back matter
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Fay, Theodore S. (Theodore Sedgwick), 1807-1898 [1834], The author, from The Atlantic club-book (Harper & Brothers) [word count] [eaf092].
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