CHAPTER XVI. Out of His Head.
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THE thought that I shall be insane,
some day, that I shall be taken
from the restless world outside, to
some quiet inner retreat where I
can complete the Moon-Apparatus,
and fold my arms, like a man
who has fulfilled his mission; the
thought of this, my probable destiny,
is rather pleasant to me than otherwise.
I say probable destiny, because a certain trivial
aberration of mind has been handed down in our
family from generation to generation, with the
dented silver bowl in which Miles Standish
brewed many a punch in the olden time. This
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punch, I fancy, must have somehow got into the
heads of our family, and put us out. Dr. Pendegrast
thinks so.
At all events, I am to be insane. I have made
up my mind to that.
But not yet.
I am as reasonable and matter-of-fact as a man
may well be. This house in which I pass my
days and nights, writing, is not an asylum: this
mullioned window, I grant you, is substantially
barred; but that is to keep mad folks out. I sit
here, by the grating, and watch them — princes
and beggars, going up and down. Am I to
become mellow in the head like these?
Ay; but not yet.
The man who brings me food three times a day,
is not my keeper; the refined and cheerful
gentlemen with whom I converse in our highwalled
garden, are not monomaniacs.
There is Sir Philip Sidney, who occupies an
elegant suit of drawing-rooms on my left — the
pathetic dandy! I like him, though. When he
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takes off his kids, he has pluck. There is the
learned Magliabechi, on my right, busy with his
rare folios. There is the moon-painter, Claude
Lorraine (fifth floor, back,) who talks in pigments,
as if he had swallowed a spear of the
northern lights. And there is young John Keats,
down stairs, pondering over a vellum-bound missal,
illumined by some monk of the middle ages.
(Keats informs me that he seriously thinks of
finishing that fragment of Hyperion.)
They are not idiots, as the times go; they are
glorious poets and philanthropists whose thoughts
are the blood of the world.
The shadow of the church-steeple has slanted
across the street. It is twilight. The air is full
of uncertain shapes and sounds; the houses over
the way, look as if they were done in sepia;
people are walking dreamily through the hushed
streets, like apparitions; and the agile apothecary,
on the corner, has fired up the amber and emerald
jars in his show-case.
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The girl in the tailor's shop, opposite, leans out
of the window, brown in the dusk, a mere crayon
outline of a girl; she fastens back the blind, showing
me how prettily she is made. Now the lamps
are lighted. The grocery-man's boy lounges,
looking up at her window. I wonder if he is
watching the plump little figure that comes and
goes on the curtain?
It is twilight. Everything is comforted and
subdued: a gentle spirit lays its finger on the lips
of care.... even on my lips...
Here comes that genial man, with the wirecovered
candle, and my supper.
“How do you find yourself, sir?” says the
man, smiling benignantly at the ceiling.
“Extremely well, thank you, what's-yourname,”
I reply. “By the way, I wish you'd
tell Magliabechi that I'd like to have a word
with him.”
“Now, could n't you be so kind as to wait till
morning?” says the man, pleasantly.
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I look upon this as very considerate in him, and
conclude to wait.
I wonder who he is?
He certainly takes great interest in me. I will
do something for him, when the Moon-Apparatus
is completed. He deserves it. Dr. Pendegrast
must know him. If I should ever get out of my
head, and I shall, some day, I know, it would be
pleasant to have such a well-bred, affable fellow
for my —
Alas! how can I speak thus confidently of the
future, when — if my calculations are correct, and
everything assures they are — the long-expected
crisis is at hand? How can I pen these worse
than idle words, when I have barely time to conclude
the task which I dare not leave undone or
slighted?
What people are these hovering silently in the
shadow of my bookcases? Who is the slight girl
that looks upon me with such serious eyes? and
who is she that seems so woe-begone in her
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tinselled dress? There are two men in the group—
a pale, sad man, like one I knew long ago: a
tall, brawny man, stained with travel, his face
scorched by the sun, and his feet red with desert
sand. The end must be near since these have
come to me.
Hasten back, wayworn pilgrims, to the dim
confines of the world we are to share together.
“Stay for me there! I shall not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.”
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Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907 [1862], Out of his head: a romance [Also, Paul Lynde's sketch book]. (Carleton, New York) [word count] [eaf448T].
