Mosses from an old manse
reverence to the worker of immortality. Nor does it matter much to him,
in his triumph over all the ages, though a generation or two of his own
times shall do themselves the wrong to disregard him.
By this time Monsieur On-Dit had caught up the stranger’s name and
destiny and was busily whispering the intelligence among the other
guests.
“Pshaw!” said one. “There can never be an American genius.”
“Pish!” cried another. “We have already as good poets as any in the
world. For my part, I desire to see no better.”
And the Oldest Inhabitant, when it was proposed to introduce him to the
Master Genius, begged to be excused, observing that a man who had been
honored with the acquaintance of Dwight, and Freneau, and Joel Barlow,
might be allowed a little austerity of taste.
The saloon was now fast filling up by the arrival of other remarkable
characters, among whom were noticed Davy Jones, the distinguished
nautical personage, and a rude, carelessly dressed, harum-scarum sort
of elderly fellow, known by the nickname of Old Harry. The latter,
however, after being shown to a dressing-room, reappeared with his gray
hair nicely combed, his clothes brushed, a clean dicky on his neck, and
altogether so changed in aspect as to merit the more respectful
appellation of Venerable Henry. Joel Doe and Richard Roe came arm in
arm, accompanied by a Man of Straw, a fictitious indorser, and several
persons who had no existence except as voters in closely contested
elections. The celebrated Seatsfield, who now entered, was at first
supposed to belong to the same brotherhood, until he made it apparent
that he was a real man of flesh and blood and had his earthly domicile
in Germany. Among the latest comers, as might reasonably be expected,
arrived a guest from the far future.
“Do you know him? do you know him?” whispered Monsieur On-Dit, who
seemed to be acquainted with everybody. “He is the representative of
Posterity,—the man of an age to come.”
“And how came he here?” asked a figure who was evidently the prototype
of the fashion-plate in a magazine, and might be taken to represent the
vanities of the passing moment. “The fellow infringes upon our rights
by coming before his time.”
“But you forget where we are,” answered the Man of Fancy, who overheard
the remark. “The lower earth, it is true, will be forbidden ground to
him for many long years hence; but a castle in the air is a sort of
no-man’s-land, where Posterity may make acquaintance with us on equal
terms.”
No sooner was his identity known than a throng of guests gathered about
Posterity, all expressing the most generous interest in his welfare,
and many boasting of the sacrifices which they had made, or were
willing to make, in his behalf. Some, with as much secrecy as possible,
desired his judgment upon certain copies of verses or great manuscript
rolls of prose; others accosted him with the familiarity of old
friends, taking it for granted that he was perfectly cognizant of their
names and characters. At length, finding himself thus beset, Posterity
was put quite beside his patience.
“Gentlemen, my good friends,” cried he, breaking loose from a misty
poet who strove to hold him by the button, “I pray you to attend to
your own business, and leave me to take care of mine! I expect to owe
you nothing, unless it be certain national debts, and other
encumbrances and impediments, physical and moral, which I shall find it
troublesome enough to remove from my path. As to your verses, pray read
them to your contemporaries. Your names are as strange to me as your
faces; and even were it otherwise,—let me whisper you a secret,—the
cold, icy memory which one generation may retain of another is but a
poor recompense to barter life for. Yet, if your heart is set on being
known to me, the surest, the only method is, to live truly and wisely
for your own age, whereby, if the native force be in you, you may
likewise live for posterity.”
“It is nonsense,” murmured the Oldest Inhabitant, who, as a man of the
past, felt jealous that all notice should be withdrawn from himself to
be lavished on the future, “sheer nonsense, to waste so much thought on
what only is to be.”
To divert the minds of his guests, who were considerably abashed by
this little incident, the Man of Fancy led them through several
apartments of the castle, receiving their compliments upon the taste
and varied magnificence that were displayed in each. One of these rooms
was filled with moonlight, which did not enter through the window, but
was the aggregate of all the moonshine that is scattered around the
earth on a summer night while no eyes are awake to enjoy its beauty.
Airy spirits had gathered it up, wherever they found it gleaming on the
broad bosom of a lake, or silvering the meanders of a stream, or
glimmering among the wind-stirred boughs of a wood, and had garnered it
in this one spacious hall. Along the walls, illuminated by the mild
intensity of the moonshine, stood a multitude of ideal statues, the
original conceptions of the great works of ancient or modern art, which
the sculptors did but imperfectly succeed in putting into marble; for
it is not to be supposed that the pure idea of an immortal creation
ceases to exist; it is only necessary to know where they are deposited
in order to obtain possession of them.—In the alcoves of another vast
apartment was arranged a splendid library, the volumes of which were
inestimable, because they consisted, not of actual performances, but of
the works which the authors only planned, without ever finding the
happy season to achieve them. To take familiar instances, here were the
untold tales of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims; the unwritten cantos of
the Fairy Queen; the conclusion of Coleridge’s Christabel; and the
whole of Dryden’s projected epic on the subject of King Arthur. The
shelves were crowded; for it would not be too much to affirm that every
author has imagined and shaped out in his thought more and far better
works than those which actually proceeded from his pen. And here,
likewise, where the unrealized conceptions of youthful poets who died
of the very strength of their own genius before the world had caught
one inspired murmur from their lips.
When the peculiarities of the library and statue-gallery were explained
to the Oldest Inhabitant, he appeared infinitely perplexed, and
exclaimed, with more energy than usual, that he had never heard of such
a thing within his memory, and, moreover, did not at all understand how
it could be.
“But my brain, I think,” said the good old gentleman, “is getting not
so clear as it used to be. You young folks, I suppose, can see your way
through these strange matters. For my part, I give it up.”
“And so do I,” muttered the Old Harry. “It is enough to puzzle
the—Ahem!”
Making as little reply as possible to these observations, the Man of
Fancy preceded the company to another noble saloon, the pillars of
which were solid golden sunbeams taken out of the sky in the first hour
in the morning. Thus, as they retained all their living lustre, the
room was filled with the most cheerful radiance imaginable, yet not too
dazzling to be borne with comfort and delight. The windows were
beautifully adorned with curtains made of the many-colored clouds of
sunrise, all imbued with virgin light, and hanging in magnificent
festoons from the ceiling to the floor. Moreover, there were fragments
of rainbows scattered through the room; so that the guests, astonished
at one another, reciprocally saw their heads made glorious by the seven
primary hues; or, if they chose,—as who would not?—they could grasp a
rainbow in the air and convert it to their own apparel and adornment.
But the morning light and scattered rainbows were only a type and
symbol of the real wonders of the apartment. By an influence akin to
magic, yet perfectly natural, whatever means and opportunities of joy
are neglected in the lower world had been carefully gathered up and
deposited in the saloon of morning sunshine. As may well be conceived,
therefore, there was material enough to supply, not merely a joyous
evening, but also a happy lifetime, to more than as many people as that
spacious apartment could contain. The company seemed to renew their
youth; while that pattern and proverbial standard of innocence, the
Child Unborn, frolicked to and fro among them, communicating his own
unwrinkled gayety to all who had the good fortune to witness his
gambols.
“My honored friends,” said the Man of Fancy, after they had enjoyed
themselves awhile, “I am now to request your presence in the
banqueting-hall, where a slight collation is awaiting you.”
“Ah, well said!” ejaculated a cadaverous figure, who had been invited
for no other reason than that he was pretty constantly in the habit of
dining with Duke Humphrey. “I was beginning to wonder whether a castle
in the air were provided with a kitchen.”
It was curious, in truth, to see how instantaneously the guests were
diverted from the high moral enjoyments which they had been tasting
with so much apparent zest by a suggestion of the more solid as well as
liquid delights of the festive board. They thronged eagerly in the rear
of the host, who now ushered them into a lofty and extensive hall, from
end to end of which was arranged a table, glittering all over with
innumerable dishes and drinking-vessels of gold. It is an uncertain
point whether these rich articles of plate were made for the occasion
out of molten sunbeams, or recovered from the wrecks of Spanish
galleons that had lain for ages at the bottom of the sea. The upper end
of the table was overshadowed by a canopy, beneath which was placed a
chair of elaborate magnificence, which the host himself declined to
occupy, and besought his guests to assign it to the worthiest among
them. As a suitable homage to his incalculable antiquity and eminent
distinction, the post of honor was at first tendered to the Oldest
Inhabitant. He, however, eschewed it, and requested the favor of a bowl
of gruel at a side table, where he could refresh himself with a quiet
nap. There was some little hesitation as to the next candidate, until
Posterity took the Master Genius of our country by the hand and led him
to the chair of state beneath the princely canopy. When once they
beheld him in his true place, the company acknowledged the justice of
the selection by a long thunder-roll of vehement applause.
Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not all the delicacies of
the season, yet all the rarities which careful purveyors had met with
in the flesh, fish, and vegetable markets of the land of Nowhere. The
bill of fare being unfortunately lost, we can only mention a phoenix,
roasted in its own flames, cold potted birds of paradise, ice-creams
from the Milky-Way, and whip syllabubs and flummery from the Paradise
of Fools, whereof there was a very great consumption. As for
drinkables, the temperance people contented themselves with water as
usual; but it was the water of the Fountain of Youth; the ladies sipped
Nepenthe; the lovelorn, the careworn, and the sorrow-stricken were
supplied with brimming goblets of Lethe; and it was shrewdly
conjectured that a certain golden vase, from which only the more
distinguished guests were invited to partake, contained nectar that had
been mellowing ever since the days of classical mythology. The cloth
being removed, the company, as usual, grew eloquent over their liquor
and delivered themselves of a succession of brilliant speeches,—the
task of reporting which we resign to the more adequate ability of
Counsellor Gill, whose indispensable co-operation the Man of Fancy had
taken the precaution to secure.
When the festivity of the banquet was at its most ethereal point, the