Mosses from an old manse
Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the
old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next, appeared,
making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing the green
grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut joists, and vexing the
whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Soon,
moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine which had
crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses
were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about
brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as
little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of
one’s grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more
sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our
household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little
breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one
of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon us,—and passed
forth between the tall stone gate-posts as uncertain as the wandering
Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the
hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no
irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while
I am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house. As a
story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my
imaginary personages, but none like this.
The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our secluded
dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no
philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand unsupported on its
edges. All that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these, few
tales and essays, which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm
summer of my heart and mind. Save editing (an easy task) the journal of
my friend of many years, the African Cruiser, I had done nothing else.
With these idle weeds and withering blossoms I have intermixed some
that were produced long ago,—old, faded things, reminding me of flowers
pressed between the leaves of a book,—and now offer the bouquet, such
as it is, to any whom it may please. These fitful sketches, with so
little of external life about them, yet claiming no profundity of
purpose,—so reserved, even while they sometimes seem so frank,—often
but half in earnest, and never, even when most so, expressing
satisfactorily the thoughts which they profess to image,—such trifles,
I truly feel, afford no solid basis for a literary reputation.
Nevertheless, the public—if my limited number of readers, whom I
venture to regard rather as a circle of friends, may be termed a
public—will receive them the more kindly, as the last offering, the
last collection of this nature which it is my purpose ever to put
forth. Unless I could do better, I have done enough in this kind. For
myself the book will always retain one charm,—as reminding me of the
river, with its delightful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden,
and the orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, with the little
study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through the
willow branches while I wrote.
Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my
guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within
and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study.
There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the
house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to
the following tales,—an act of personal inhospitality, however, which I
never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy.
THE BIRTHMARK
In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an
eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long
before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more
attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the
care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace
smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a
beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the
comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred
mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it
was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in
its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination,
the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment
in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would
ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the
philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and
perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer
possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature.
He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies
ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his
young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by
intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength
of the latter to his own.
Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly
remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very
soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble
in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.
“Georgiana,” said he, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon
your cheek might be removed?”
“No, indeed,” said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his
manner, she blushed deeply. “To tell you the truth it has been so often
called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.”
“Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but
never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from
the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we
hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the
visible mark of earthly imperfection.”
“Shocks you, my husband!” cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first
reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. “Then why
did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks
you!”
To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of
Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as
it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state
of her complexion—a healthy though delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint
of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the
surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more
indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that
bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting
motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson
stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful
distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand,
though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say
that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the
infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic
endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a
desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing
his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however,
that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied
exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the
beholders. Some fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own
sex—affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite
destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her
countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one
of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary
marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine
observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration,
contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess
one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a
flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the
matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.
Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy’s self could have found aught else
to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the
prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now
stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of
emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so
perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with
every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity
which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her
productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or
that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson
hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the
highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with
the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible
frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of
his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s sombre
imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object,
causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty,
whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.
At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably
and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary,
reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first
appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and
modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the
morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s face and
recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at
the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and
beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand
that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana
soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the
peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her
cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was
brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.
Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray
the stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time,
voluntarily took up the subject.
“Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,” said she, with a feeble attempt at a
smile, “have you any recollection of a dream last night about this
odious hand?”
“None! none whatever!” replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in
a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of
his emotion, “I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had
taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.”
“And you did dream of it?” continued Georgiana, hastily; for she
dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. “A
terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to
forget this one expression?—‘It is in her heart now; we must have it
out!’ Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall
that dream.”
The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot
confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers
them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that
perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He
had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation