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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9229-0.txt b/9229-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..397d92a --- /dev/null +++ b/9229-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,899 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Intelligence Office, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Intelligence Office + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9229] +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** + + + + +The Intelligence Office + +by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a +pen behind his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a +metropolitan office. The apartment was fitted up with a counter, and +furnished with an oaken cabinet and a Chair or two, in simple and +business-like style. Around the walls were stuck advertisements of +articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed of; in +one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has contrived. +The interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly by the tall +edifices that rose on the opposite side of the street, and partly by +the immense show-bills of blue and crimson paper that were expanded +over each of the three windows. Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the +rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the shout of the city crier, the +scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of the multitudinous life that +surged along in front of the office, the figure at the desk pored +diligently over a folio volume, of ledger-like size and aspect, He +looked like the spirit of a record—the soul of his own great volume +made visible in mortal shape. + +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door of +some individual from the busy population whose vicinity was manifested +by so much buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a thriving +mechanic in quest of a tenement that should come within his moderate +means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish girl from the banks of Killarney, +wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our land, while her heart still +hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, a single gentleman +looking out for economical board; and now—for this establishment +offered an epitome of worldly pursuits—it was a faded beauty inquiring +for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his lost shadow; or an +author of ten years’ standing, for his vanished reputation; or a moody +man, for yesterday’s sunshine. + +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat +awry upon his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, his +eyes staring in directions opposite to their intelligence, and a +certain odd unsuitableness pervading his whole figure. Wherever he +might chance to be, whether in palace or cottage, church or market, on +land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he must have worn the +characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. + +“This,” inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,—“this is the Central Intelligence Office?” + +“Even so,” answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of his +volume; he then looked the applicant in the face and said briefly, +“Your business?” + +“I want,” said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, “a place!” + +“A place! and of what nature?” asked the Intelligencer. “There are many +vacant, or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, since they +range from that of a footman up to a seat at the council-board, or in +the cabinet, or a throne, or a presidential chair.” + +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, +dissatisfied air,—a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a slight +contortion of the brow,—an earnestness of glance, that asked and +expected, yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short, he +evidently wanted, not in a physical or intellectual sense, but with an +urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of all things to satisfy, +since it knows not its own object. + +“Ah, you mistake me!” said he at length, with a gesture of nervous +impatience. “Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer my +purpose; or, more probably, none of them. I want my place! my own +place! my true place in the world! my proper sphere! my thing to do, +which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus awry, +and which I have vainly sought all my lifetime! Whether it be a +footman’s duty or a king’s is of little consequence, so it be naturally +mine. Can you help me here?” + +“I will enter your application,” answered the Intelligencer, at the +same time writing a few lines in his volume. “But to undertake such a +business, I tell you frankly, is quite apart from the ground covered by +my official duties. Ask for something specific, and it may doubtless be +negotiated for you, on your compliance with the conditions. But were I +to go further, I should have the whole population of the city upon my +shoulders; since far the greater proportion of them are, more or less, +in your predicament.” + +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the +door without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the +disappointment, he was probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch as +the fatality of such people never deserts them, and, whether alive or +dead, they are invariably out of place. + +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth +entered hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain +whether the man of intelligence was alone. He then approached close to +the desk, blushed like a maiden, and seemed at a loss how to broach his +business. + +“You come upon an affair of the heart,” said the official personage, +looking into him through his mysterious spectacles. “State it in as few +words as may be.” + +“You are right,” replied the youth. “I have a heart to dispose of.” + +“You seek an exchange?” said the Intelligencer. “Foolish youth, why not +be contented with your own?” + +“Because,” exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a +passionate glow,—“because my heart burns me with an intolerable fire; +it tortures me all day long with yearnings for I know not what, and +feverish throbbings, and the pangs of a vague sorrow; and it awakens me +in the night-time with a quake, when there is nothing to be feared. I +cannot endure it any longer. It were wiser to throw away such a heart, +even if it brings me nothing in return.” + +“O, very well,” said the man of office, making an entry in his volume. +“Your affair will be easily transacted. This species of brokerage makes +no inconsiderable part of my business; and there is always a large +assortment of the article to select from. Here, if I mistake not, comes +a pretty fair sample.” + +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, affording +a glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as she timidly +entered, seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of the outer +atmosphere into the somewhat gloomy apartment. We know not her errand +there, nor can we reveal whether the young man gave up his heart into +her custody. If so, the arrangement was neither better nor worse than +in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, where the parallel sensibilities +of a similar age, importunate affections, and the easy satisfaction of +characters not deeply conscious of themselves, supply the place of any +profounder sympathy. + +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections an +office of so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in proportion +to the cases that came under an ordinary rule, but still it did happen, +that a heart was occasionally brought hither of such exquisite +material, so delicately attempered, and so curiously wrought, that no +other heart could be found to match it. It might almost be considered a +misfortune, in a worldly point of view, to be the possessor of such a +diamond of the purest water; since in any reasonable probability it +could only be exchanged for an ordinary pebble, or a bit of cunningly +manufactured glass, or, at least, for a jewel of native richness, but +ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or an earthy vein running through its +central lustre. To choose another figure, it is sad that hearts which +have their wellspring in the infinite, and contain inexhaustible +sympathies, should ever be doomed to pour themselves into shallow +vessels, and thus lavish their rich affections on the ground. Strange +that the finer and deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while +possessed of every other delicate instinct, should so often lack that +most invaluable one of preserving itself front contamination with what +is of a baser kind! Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual fountain is +kept pure by a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into the light of +heaven without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had +gushed upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with +the pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. But +these miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are far +beyond the scope of such a superficial agent in human affairs as the +figure in the mysterious spectacles. + +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a +fresher reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a man +of woe-begone and downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he had +lost the very soul out of his body, and had traversed all the world +over, searching in the dust of the highways, and along the shady +footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, and among the sands of +the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent an anxious +glance along the pavement of the street as he came hitherward; he +looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon the floor of the +room; and, finally, coming up to the Man of Intelligence, he gazed +through the inscrutable spectacles which the latter wore, as if the +lost treasure might be hidden within his eyes. + +“I have lost—” he began; and then he paused. + +“Yes,” said the Intelligencer, “I see that you have lost,—but what?” + +“I have lost a precious jewel!” replied the unfortunate person, “the +like of which is not to be found among any prince’s treasures. While I +possessed it, the contemplation of it was my sole and sufficient +happiness. No price should have purchased it of me; but it has fallen +from my bosom where I wore it in my careless wanderings about the +city.” + +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, the +Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has been +mentioned as forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here were +deposited whatever articles had been picked up in the streets, until +the right owners should claim them. It was a strange and heterogeneous +collection. Not the least remarkable part of it was a great number of +wedding-rings, each one of which had been riveted upon the finger with +holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the most solemn rites could +attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too slippery for the wearer’s +vigilance. The gold of some was worn thin, betokening the attrition of +years of wedlock; others, glittering from the jeweller’s shop, must +have been lost within the honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the +leaves scribbled over with sentiments that had been the deepest truths +of the writer’s earlier years, but which were now quite obliterated +from his memory. So scrupulously were articles preserved in this +depository, that not even withered flowers were rejected; white roses, +and blush-roses, and moss-roses, fit emblems of virgin purity and +shamefacedness, which bad been lost or flung away, and trampled into +the pollution of the streets; locks of hair,—the golden and the glossy +dark,—the long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of man, signified +that lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted to +them as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many +of these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent +had departed from the lives of their former possessors ever since they +had so wilfully or negligently lost them. Here were gold pencil-cases, +little ruby hearts with golden arrows through them, bosom-pins, pieces +of coin, and small articles of every description, comprising nearly all +that have been lost since a long time ago. Most of them, doubtless, had +a history and a meaning, if there were time to search it out and room +to tell it. Whoever has missed anything valuable, whether out of his +heart, mind, or pocket, would do well to make inquiry at the Central +Intelligence Office. + +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the soul +of celestial purity, congealed and polished. + +“There is my jewel! my very pearl!” cried the stranger, almost beside +himself with rapture. “It is mine! Give it me this moment! or I shall +perish!” + +“I perceive,” said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more closely, +“that this is the Pearl of Great Price!” + +“The very same,” answered the stranger. “Judge, then, of my misery at +losing it out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live without it +an instant to longer.” + +“Pardon me,” rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, “you ask what is +beyond my duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a peculiar +tenure; and having once let it escape from your keeping, you have no +greater claim to it—nay, not so great—as any other person. I cannot +give it back.” + +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man—who saw before his eyes +the jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it—soften the heart +of this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though exercising +such an apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally the loser of +the inestimable pearl clutched his hands among his hair, and ran madly +forth into the world, which was affrighted at his desperate looks. +There passed him on the doorstep a fashionable young gentleman, whose +business was to inquire for a damask rosebud, the gift of his +lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole within a hour after +receiving it. So various were the errands of those who visited this +Central Office, where all human wishes seemed to be made known, and, so +far as destiny would allow, negotiated to their fulfilment. + +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the look +of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He had just +alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had orders to wait in +the street while its owner transacted his business. This person came up +to the desk with a quick, determined step, and looked the Intelligencer +in the face with a resolute eye; though, at the same time, some secret +trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky light. + +“I have an estate to dispose of,” said he, with a brevity that seemed +characteristic. + +“Describe it,” said the Intelligencer. + +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its +nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, in +ample circuit; together with a mansion-house, in the construction of +which it had been his object to realize a castle in the air, hardening +its shadowy walls into granite, and rendering its visionary splendor +perceptible to the awakened eye. Judging from his description, it was +beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet substantial enough to +endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the gorgeous furniture, the +refinements of upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that +combined to render this a residence where life might flow onward in a +stream of golden days, undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves +to fling into it. + +“I am a man of strong will,” said he, in conclusion; “and at my first +setting out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved to make +myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, together +with the abundant revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded to +the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate which I have now +concluded to dispose of.” + +“And your terms?” asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the +particulars with which the stranger had supplied him. + +“Easy, abundantly easy!” answered the successful man, smiling, but with +a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to quell an +inward pang. “I have been engaged in various sorts of business,—a +distiller, a trader to Africa, an East India merchant, a speculator in +the stocks,—and, in the course of these affairs, have contracted an +encumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser of the estate shall +merely be required to assume this burden to himself.” + +“I understand you,” said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen +behind his ear. “I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these +conditions. Very probably the next possessor may acquire the estate +with a similar encumbrance, but it will be of his own contracting, and +will not lighten your burden in the least.” + +“And am I to live on,” fiercely exclaimed the stranger, “with the dirt +of these accursed acres and the granite of this infernal mansion +crushing down my soul? How, if I should turn the edifice into an +almshouse or a hospital, or tear it down and build a church?” + +“You can at least make the experiment,” said the Intelligencer; “but +the whole matter is one which you must settle for yourself.” + +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, which +rattled off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden with the +weight of much land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps of gold, all +compressed into an evil conscience. + +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most +noteworthy of whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself +out to be one of the bad spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in +his laboratory. He pretended to show a certificate of character, which, +he averred, had been given him by that famous necromancer, and +countersigned by several masters whom he had subsequently served. + +“I am afraid, my good friend,” observed the Intelligencer, “that your +chance of getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the evil +spirit for themselves and their neighbors, and play the part more +effectually than ninety-nine out of a hundred of your fraternity.” + +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, being +about to vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and chagrin, +the editor of a political newspaper chanced to enter the office in +quest of a scribbler of party paragraphs. The former servant of Dr. +Faustus, with some misgivings as to his sufficiency of venom, was +allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next appeared, likewise +seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who had aided Bonaparte +in his ascent to imperial power. He was examined as to his +qualifications by an aspiring politician, but finally rejected, as +lacking familiarity with the cunning tactics of the present day. + +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if +everybody turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to +record here some want, or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or +possessions, of which they wished to negotiate the sale. A China +merchant had lost his health by a long residence in that wasting +climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth along +with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. A soldier +offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that which it had +cost him on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch desired nothing but +to be accommodated with any creditable method of laying down his life; +for misfortune and pecuniary troubles had so subdued his spirits that +he could no longer conceive the possibility of happiness, nor had the +heart to try for it. Nevertheless, happening to, overhear some +conversation in the Intelligence Office respecting wealth to be rapidly +accumulated by a certain mode of speculation, he resolved to live out +this one other experiment of better fortune. Many persons desired to +exchange their youthful vices for others better suited to the gravity +of advancing age; a few, we are glad to say, made earnest, efforts to +exchange vice for virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, succeeded in +effecting it. But it was remarkable that what all were the least +willing to give up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the +habits, the oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous +indulgences, somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody but +themselves could understand the fascination. + +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these +freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate +longings of miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, +would be curious reading were it possible to obtain it for publication. +Human character in its individual developments-human nature in the +mass—may best be studied in its wishes; and this was the record of them +all. There was an endless diversity of mode and circumstance, yet +withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, that any one page of +the volume-whether written in the days before the Flood, or the +yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written on the morrow that is +close at hand, or a thousand ages hence—might serve as a specimen of +the whole. Not but that there were wild sallies of fantasy that could +scarcely occur to more than one man’s brain, whether reasonable or +lunatic. The strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone +deep into scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, +though not the loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from +her some secret, or some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from +mortal grasp. She loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them +with mysteries that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct +new minerals, to produce new forms of vegetable life, to create an +insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is a sort of wish that +has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An astronomer, +who lived far more among the distant worlds of space than in this lower +sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite side of the moon, which, +unless the system of the firmament be reversed, she can never turn +towards the earth. On the same page of the volume was written the wish +of a little child to have the stars for playthings. + +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome +recurrence, was, of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from a +few shillings up to unreckonable thousands. But in reality this +often-repeated expression covered as many different desires. Wealth is +the golden essence of the outward world, embodying almost everything +that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and therefore it is the +natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we find ourselves, +and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, that men abridge into +this general wish. Here and there, it is true, the volume testified to +some heart so perverted as to desire gold for its own sake. Many wished +for power; a strange desire indeed, since it is but another form of +slavery. Old people wished for the delights of youth; a fop for a +fashionable coat; an idle reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a +rhyme to some stubborn word; a painter, for Titian’s secret of +coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a republican, for a kingdom and a +palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife; a man of palate, for +green peas; and a poor man, for a crust of bread. The ambitious desires +of public men, elsewhere so craftily concealed, were here expressed +openly and boldly, side by side with the unselfish wishes of the +philanthropist for the welfare of the race, so beautiful, so +comforting, in contrast with the egotism that continually weighed self +against the world. Into the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we +will not penetrate. + +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, +perusing this volume carefully and comparing its records with men’s +perfected designs, as expressed in their deeds and daily life, to +ascertain how far the one accorded with the other. Undoubtedly, in most +cases, the correspondence would be found remote. The holy and generous +wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart towards heaven, often +lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. The foul, +selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a corrupted heart, +often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without being concreted into +an earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably truer, as a representation +of the human heart, than is the living drama of action as it evolves +around us. There is more of good and more of evil in it; more redeeming +points of the bad and more errors of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, +and baser degradation of the soul; in short, a more perplexing +amalgamation of vice and virtue than we witness in the outward world. +Decency and external conscience often produce a far fairer outside than +is warranted by the stains within. And be it owned, oil the other hand, +that a man seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than he +realizes in act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or +other, have arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him +in this volume. Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man +shudder for his own wild and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, +whose whole life is the incarnation of a wicked desire. + +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,—a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some portion +of what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of +Intelligence. A grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the +office, with such an earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his white +hair floated backward as he hurried up to the desk, while his dim eyes +caught a momentary lustre from his vehemence of purpose. This venerable +figure explained that he was in search of To-morrow. + +“I have spent all my life in pursuit of it,” added the sage old +gentleman, “being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or other +in store for me. But I am now getting a little in years, and must make +haste; for, unless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it +will finally escape me.” + +“This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,” said the Man of +Intelligence, “is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his father +into the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will +doubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts which you +expect, he has scattered them all among a throng of Yesterdays.” + +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the +grandsire hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the +floor; and, as he disappeared, a little boy scampered through the door +in chase of a butterfly which had got astray amid the barren sunshine +of the city. Had the old gentleman been shrewder, he might have +detected To-morrow under the semblance of that gaudy insect. The golden +butterfly glistened through the shadowy apartment, and brushed its +wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered forth again with the +child still in pursuit. + +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a thinker, +but somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His face was full +of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath. Though +harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, +which had force enough to heat his powerful intellect through and +through. He advanced to the Intelligencer and looked at him with a +glance of such stern sincerity that perhaps few secrets were beyond its +scope. + +“I seek for Truth,” said he. + +“It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my +cognizance,” replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new inscription +in his volume. “Most men seek to impose some cunning falsehood upon +themselves for truth. But I can lend no help to your researches. You +must achieve the miracle for yourself. At some fortunate moment you may +find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may be mistily discerned far in +advance, or possibly behind you.” + +“Not behind me,” said the seeker; “for I have left nothing on my track +without a thorough investigation. She flits before me, passing now +through a naked solitude, and now mingling with the throng of a popular +assembly, and now writing with the pen of a French philosopher, and now +standing at the altar of an old cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic +priest, performing the high mass. O weary search! But I must not +falter; and surely my heart-deep quest of Truth shall avail at last.” + +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of +this being, wholly regardless of his external development. + +“And what are you?” said he. “It will not satisfy me to point to this +fantastic show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of business. +Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real agency in life and your +influence upon mankind.” + +“Yours is a mind,” answered the Man of Intelligence, “before which the +forms and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the multitude +vanish at once and leave the naked reality beneath. Know, then, the +secret. My agency in worldly action, my connection with the press, and +tumult, and intermingling, and development of human affairs, is merely +delusive. The desire of man’s heart does for him whatever I seem to do. +I am no minister of action, but the Recording Spirit.” + +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as +the roar of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of the +jostling masses, the rush and tumult of man’s life, in its noisy and +brief career, arose so high that it drowned the words of these two +talkers; and whether they stood talking in the moon, or in Vanity Fair, +or in a city of this actual world, is more than I can say. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Intelligence Office</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9229]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE ***</div> + +<h1>The Intelligence Office</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a pen behind +his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a metropolitan office. The +apartment was fitted up with a counter, and furnished with an oaken cabinet and +a Chair or two, in simple and business-like style. Around the walls were stuck +advertisements of articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed +of; in one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has contrived. The +interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly by the tall edifices that +rose on the opposite side of the street, and partly by the immense show-bills +of blue and crimson paper that were expanded over each of the three windows. +Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the +shout of the city crier, the scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of the +multitudinous life that surged along in front of the office, the figure at the +desk pored diligently over a folio volume, of ledger-like size and aspect, He +looked like the spirit of a record—the soul of his own great volume made +visible in mortal shape. +</p> + +<p> +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door of some +individual from the busy population whose vicinity was manifested by so much +buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a thriving mechanic in quest of a +tenement that should come within his moderate means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish +girl from the banks of Killarney, wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our +land, while her heart still hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, +a single gentleman looking out for economical board; and now—for this +establishment offered an epitome of worldly pursuits—it was a faded +beauty inquiring for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his lost shadow; +or an author of ten years’ standing, for his vanished reputation; or a moody +man, for yesterday’s sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat awry upon +his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, his eyes staring in +directions opposite to their intelligence, and a certain odd unsuitableness +pervading his whole figure. Wherever he might chance to be, whether in palace +or cottage, church or market, on land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he +must have worn the characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. +</p> + +<p> +“This,” inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,—“this is the Central Intelligence Office?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of his volume; +he then looked the applicant in the face and said briefly, “Your business?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want,” said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, “a place!” +</p> + +<p> +“A place! and of what nature?” asked the Intelligencer. “There are many vacant, +or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, since they range from that +of a footman up to a seat at the council-board, or in the cabinet, or a throne, +or a presidential chair.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, dissatisfied +air,—a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a slight contortion of the +brow,—an earnestness of glance, that asked and expected, yet continually +wavered, as if distrusting. In short, he evidently wanted, not in a physical or +intellectual sense, but with an urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of +all things to satisfy, since it knows not its own object. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you mistake me!” said he at length, with a gesture of nervous impatience. +“Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer my purpose; or, more +probably, none of them. I want my place! my own place! my true place in the +world! my proper sphere! my thing to do, which Nature intended me to perform +when she fashioned me thus awry, and which I have vainly sought all my +lifetime! Whether it be a footman’s duty or a king’s is of little consequence, +so it be naturally mine. Can you help me here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will enter your application,” answered the Intelligencer, at the same time +writing a few lines in his volume. “But to undertake such a business, I tell +you frankly, is quite apart from the ground covered by my official duties. Ask +for something specific, and it may doubtless be negotiated for you, on your +compliance with the conditions. But were I to go further, I should have the +whole population of the city upon my shoulders; since far the greater +proportion of them are, more or less, in your predicament.” +</p> + +<p> +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the door +without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the disappointment, he was +probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch as the fatality of such people +never deserts them, and, whether alive or dead, they are invariably out of +place. +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth entered +hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain whether the man of +intelligence was alone. He then approached close to the desk, blushed like a +maiden, and seemed at a loss how to broach his business. +</p> + +<p> +“You come upon an affair of the heart,” said the official personage, looking +into him through his mysterious spectacles. “State it in as few words as may +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” replied the youth. “I have a heart to dispose of.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seek an exchange?” said the Intelligencer. “Foolish youth, why not be +contented with your own?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a passionate +glow,—“because my heart burns me with an intolerable fire; it tortures me +all day long with yearnings for I know not what, and feverish throbbings, and +the pangs of a vague sorrow; and it awakens me in the night-time with a quake, +when there is nothing to be feared. I cannot endure it any longer. It were +wiser to throw away such a heart, even if it brings me nothing in return.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, very well,” said the man of office, making an entry in his volume. “Your +affair will be easily transacted. This species of brokerage makes no +inconsiderable part of my business; and there is always a large assortment of +the article to select from. Here, if I mistake not, comes a pretty fair +sample.” +</p> + +<p> +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, affording a +glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as she timidly entered, +seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of the outer atmosphere into the +somewhat gloomy apartment. We know not her errand there, nor can we reveal +whether the young man gave up his heart into her custody. If so, the +arrangement was neither better nor worse than in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred, where the parallel sensibilities of a similar age, importunate +affections, and the easy satisfaction of characters not deeply conscious of +themselves, supply the place of any profounder sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections an office of +so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in proportion to the cases that +came under an ordinary rule, but still it did happen, that a heart was +occasionally brought hither of such exquisite material, so delicately +attempered, and so curiously wrought, that no other heart could be found to +match it. It might almost be considered a misfortune, in a worldly point of +view, to be the possessor of such a diamond of the purest water; since in any +reasonable probability it could only be exchanged for an ordinary pebble, or a +bit of cunningly manufactured glass, or, at least, for a jewel of native +richness, but ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or an earthy vein running +through its central lustre. To choose another figure, it is sad that hearts +which have their wellspring in the infinite, and contain inexhaustible +sympathies, should ever be doomed to pour themselves into shallow vessels, and +thus lavish their rich affections on the ground. Strange that the finer and +deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while possessed of every other delicate +instinct, should so often lack that most invaluable one of preserving itself +front contamination with what is of a baser kind! Sometimes, it is true, the +spiritual fountain is kept pure by a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into +the light of heaven without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had +gushed upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with the +pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. But these +miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are far beyond the scope +of such a superficial agent in human affairs as the figure in the mysterious +spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a fresher +reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a man of woe-begone and +downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he had lost the very soul out of his +body, and had traversed all the world over, searching in the dust of the +highways, and along the shady footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, +and among the sands of the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent +an anxious glance along the pavement of the street as he came hitherward; he +looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon the floor of the room; and, +finally, coming up to the Man of Intelligence, he gazed through the inscrutable +spectacles which the latter wore, as if the lost treasure might be hidden +within his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost—” he began; and then he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Intelligencer, “I see that you have lost,—but what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost a precious jewel!” replied the unfortunate person, “the like of +which is not to be found among any prince’s treasures. While I possessed it, +the contemplation of it was my sole and sufficient happiness. No price should +have purchased it of me; but it has fallen from my bosom where I wore it in my +careless wanderings about the city.” +</p> + +<p> +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, the +Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has been mentioned as +forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here were deposited whatever +articles had been picked up in the streets, until the right owners should claim +them. It was a strange and heterogeneous collection. Not the least remarkable +part of it was a great number of wedding-rings, each one of which had been +riveted upon the finger with holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the +most solemn rites could attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too slippery for +the wearer’s vigilance. The gold of some was worn thin, betokening the +attrition of years of wedlock; others, glittering from the jeweller’s shop, +must have been lost within the honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the leaves +scribbled over with sentiments that had been the deepest truths of the writer’s +earlier years, but which were now quite obliterated from his memory. So +scrupulously were articles preserved in this depository, that not even withered +flowers were rejected; white roses, and blush-roses, and moss-roses, fit +emblems of virgin purity and shamefacedness, which bad been lost or flung away, +and trampled into the pollution of the streets; locks of hair,—the golden +and the glossy dark,—the long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of +man, signified that lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted +to them as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many of +these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent had departed +from the lives of their former possessors ever since they had so wilfully or +negligently lost them. Here were gold pencil-cases, little ruby hearts with +golden arrows through them, bosom-pins, pieces of coin, and small articles of +every description, comprising nearly all that have been lost since a long time +ago. Most of them, doubtless, had a history and a meaning, if there were time +to search it out and room to tell it. Whoever has missed anything valuable, +whether out of his heart, mind, or pocket, would do well to make inquiry at the +Central Intelligence Office. +</p> + +<p> +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the soul of +celestial purity, congealed and polished. +</p> + +<p> +“There is my jewel! my very pearl!” cried the stranger, almost beside himself +with rapture. “It is mine! Give it me this moment! or I shall perish!” +</p> + +<p> +“I perceive,” said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more closely, “that +this is the Pearl of Great Price!” +</p> + +<p> +“The very same,” answered the stranger. “Judge, then, of my misery at losing it +out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live without it an instant to +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, “you ask what is beyond my +duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a peculiar tenure; and having +once let it escape from your keeping, you have no greater claim to +it—nay, not so great—as any other person. I cannot give it back.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man—who saw before his eyes the +jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it—soften the heart of +this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though exercising such an +apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally the loser of the inestimable +pearl clutched his hands among his hair, and ran madly forth into the world, +which was affrighted at his desperate looks. There passed him on the doorstep a +fashionable young gentleman, whose business was to inquire for a damask +rosebud, the gift of his lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole +within a hour after receiving it. So various were the errands of those who +visited this Central Office, where all human wishes seemed to be made known, +and, so far as destiny would allow, negotiated to their fulfilment. +</p> + +<p> +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the look of one +who knew the world and his own course in it. He had just alighted from a +handsome private carriage, which had orders to wait in the street while its +owner transacted his business. This person came up to the desk with a quick, +determined step, and looked the Intelligencer in the face with a resolute eye; +though, at the same time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky +light. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an estate to dispose of,” said he, with a brevity that seemed +characteristic. +</p> + +<p> +“Describe it,” said the Intelligencer. +</p> + +<p> +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its nature, +comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, in ample circuit; +together with a mansion-house, in the construction of which it had been his +object to realize a castle in the air, hardening its shadowy walls into +granite, and rendering its visionary splendor perceptible to the awakened eye. +Judging from his description, it was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, +yet substantial enough to endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the gorgeous +furniture, the refinements of upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that +combined to render this a residence where life might flow onward in a stream of +golden days, undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a man of strong will,” said he, in conclusion; “and at my first setting +out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved to make myself the +possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, together with the abundant +revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded to the extent of my utmost +wish. And this is the estate which I have now concluded to dispose of.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your terms?” asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the particulars +with which the stranger had supplied him. +</p> + +<p> +“Easy, abundantly easy!” answered the successful man, smiling, but with a stern +and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to quell an inward pang. “I +have been engaged in various sorts of business,—a distiller, a trader to +Africa, an East India merchant, a speculator in the stocks,—and, in the +course of these affairs, have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. +The purchaser of the estate shall merely be required to assume this burden to +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you,” said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen behind his +ear. “I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these conditions. Very +probably the next possessor may acquire the estate with a similar encumbrance, +but it will be of his own contracting, and will not lighten your burden in the +least.” +</p> + +<p> +“And am I to live on,” fiercely exclaimed the stranger, “with the dirt of these +accursed acres and the granite of this infernal mansion crushing down my soul? +How, if I should turn the edifice into an almshouse or a hospital, or tear it +down and build a church?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can at least make the experiment,” said the Intelligencer; “but the whole +matter is one which you must settle for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, which rattled +off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden with the weight of much +land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps of gold, all compressed into an evil +conscience. +</p> + +<p> +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most noteworthy of +whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself out to be one of the bad +spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in his laboratory. He pretended to +show a certificate of character, which, he averred, had been given him by that +famous necromancer, and countersigned by several masters whom he had +subsequently served. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid, my good friend,” observed the Intelligencer, “that your chance of +getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the evil spirit for themselves +and their neighbors, and play the part more effectually than ninety-nine out of +a hundred of your fraternity.” +</p> + +<p> +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, being about to +vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and chagrin, the editor of a +political newspaper chanced to enter the office in quest of a scribbler of +party paragraphs. The former servant of Dr. Faustus, with some misgivings as to +his sufficiency of venom, was allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next +appeared, likewise seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who had aided +Bonaparte in his ascent to imperial power. He was examined as to his +qualifications by an aspiring politician, but finally rejected, as lacking +familiarity with the cunning tactics of the present day. +</p> + +<p> +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if everybody +turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to record here some want, +or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or possessions, of which they wished +to negotiate the sale. A China merchant had lost his health by a long residence +in that wasting climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth +along with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. A soldier +offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that which it had cost him +on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch desired nothing but to be +accommodated with any creditable method of laying down his life; for misfortune +and pecuniary troubles had so subdued his spirits that he could no longer +conceive the possibility of happiness, nor had the heart to try for it. +Nevertheless, happening to, overhear some conversation in the Intelligence +Office respecting wealth to be rapidly accumulated by a certain mode of +speculation, he resolved to live out this one other experiment of better +fortune. Many persons desired to exchange their youthful vices for others +better suited to the gravity of advancing age; a few, we are glad to say, made +earnest, efforts to exchange vice for virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, +succeeded in effecting it. But it was remarkable that what all were the least +willing to give up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the habits, the +oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous indulgences, +somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody but themselves could +understand the fascination. +</p> + +<p> +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these freaks of +idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate longings of +miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, would be curious +reading were it possible to obtain it for publication. Human character in its +individual developments-human nature in the mass—may best be studied in +its wishes; and this was the record of them all. There was an endless diversity +of mode and circumstance, yet withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, +that any one page of the volume-whether written in the days before the Flood, +or the yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written on the morrow that is +close at hand, or a thousand ages hence—might serve as a specimen of the +whole. Not but that there were wild sallies of fantasy that could scarcely +occur to more than one man’s brain, whether reasonable or lunatic. The +strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone deep into +scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, though not the +loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or +some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She loves to +delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries that seem but just +beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new minerals, to produce new forms of +vegetable life, to create an insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is +a sort of wish that has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An +astronomer, who lived far more among the distant worlds of space than in this +lower sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite side of the moon, which, +unless the system of the firmament be reversed, she can never turn towards the +earth. On the same page of the volume was written the wish of a little child to +have the stars for playthings. +</p> + +<p> +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome recurrence, was, +of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from a few shillings up to +unreckonable thousands. But in reality this often-repeated expression covered +as many different desires. Wealth is the golden essence of the outward world, +embodying almost everything that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and +therefore it is the natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we find +ourselves, and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, that men abridge +into this general wish. Here and there, it is true, the volume testified to +some heart so perverted as to desire gold for its own sake. Many wished for +power; a strange desire indeed, since it is but another form of slavery. Old +people wished for the delights of youth; a fop for a fashionable coat; an idle +reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a +painter, for Titian’s secret of coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a +republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife; a +man of palate, for green peas; and a poor man, for a crust of bread. The +ambitious desires of public men, elsewhere so craftily concealed, were here +expressed openly and boldly, side by side with the unselfish wishes of the +philanthropist for the welfare of the race, so beautiful, so comforting, in +contrast with the egotism that continually weighed self against the world. Into +the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we will not penetrate. +</p> + +<p> +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, perusing this +volume carefully and comparing its records with men’s perfected designs, as +expressed in their deeds and daily life, to ascertain how far the one accorded +with the other. Undoubtedly, in most cases, the correspondence would be found +remote. The holy and generous wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart +towards heaven, often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. +The foul, selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a corrupted heart, +often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without being concreted into an +earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably truer, as a representation of the +human heart, than is the living drama of action as it evolves around us. There +is more of good and more of evil in it; more redeeming points of the bad and +more errors of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, and baser degradation of the +soul; in short, a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue than we +witness in the outward world. Decency and external conscience often produce a +far fairer outside than is warranted by the stains within. And be it owned, oil +the other hand, that a man seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than +he realizes in act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or other, +have arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him in this volume. +Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man shudder for his own wild +and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, whose whole life is the incarnation +of a wicked desire. +</p> + +<p> +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,—a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some portion of +what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of Intelligence. A +grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the office, with such an +earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his white hair floated backward as he +hurried up to the desk, while his dim eyes caught a momentary lustre from his +vehemence of purpose. This venerable figure explained that he was in search of +To-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +“I have spent all my life in pursuit of it,” added the sage old gentleman, +“being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or other in store for me. +But I am now getting a little in years, and must make haste; for, unless I +overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it will finally escape me.” +</p> + +<p> +“This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,” said the Man of Intelligence, +“is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his father into the region of the +infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will doubtless come up with him; but +as to the earthly gifts which you expect, he has scattered them all among a +throng of Yesterdays.” +</p> + +<p> +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the grandsire +hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the floor; and, as he +disappeared, a little boy scampered through the door in chase of a butterfly +which had got astray amid the barren sunshine of the city. Had the old +gentleman been shrewder, he might have detected To-morrow under the semblance +of that gaudy insect. The golden butterfly glistened through the shadowy +apartment, and brushed its wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered +forth again with the child still in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a thinker, but +somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His face was full of sturdy +vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath. Though harsh at first, it +was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, which had force enough to +heat his powerful intellect through and through. He advanced to the +Intelligencer and looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity that +perhaps few secrets were beyond its scope. +</p> + +<p> +“I seek for Truth,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my cognizance,” +replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new inscription in his volume. “Most +men seek to impose some cunning falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can +lend no help to your researches. You must achieve the miracle for yourself. At +some fortunate moment you may find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may be +mistily discerned far in advance, or possibly behind you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not behind me,” said the seeker; “for I have left nothing on my track without +a thorough investigation. She flits before me, passing now through a naked +solitude, and now mingling with the throng of a popular assembly, and now +writing with the pen of a French philosopher, and now standing at the altar of +an old cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic priest, performing the high mass. +O weary search! But I must not falter; and surely my heart-deep quest of Truth +shall avail at last.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of this being, +wholly regardless of his external development. +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you?” said he. “It will not satisfy me to point to this fantastic +show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of business. Tell me what is +beneath it, and what your real agency in life and your influence upon mankind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yours is a mind,” answered the Man of Intelligence, “before which the forms +and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the multitude vanish at once and +leave the naked reality beneath. Know, then, the secret. My agency in worldly +action, my connection with the press, and tumult, and intermingling, and +development of human affairs, is merely delusive. The desire of man’s heart +does for him whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action, but the +Recording Spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as the roar +of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of the jostling masses, +the rush and tumult of man’s life, in its noisy and brief career, arose so high +that it drowned the words of these two talkers; and whether they stood talking +in the moon, or in Vanity Fair, or in a city of this actual world, is more than +I can say. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ace958 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9229 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9229) diff --git a/old/9229.txt b/old/9229.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9121ec8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/9229.txt @@ -0,0 +1,948 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From +An Old Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #9229] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 6, 2003 +Last Updated: February 6, 2007 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE + + + +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a +pen behind his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a +metropolitan office. The apartment was fitted up with a counter, +and furnished with an oaken cabinet and a Chair or two, in simple +and business-like style. Around the walls were stuck advertisements +of articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed of; +in one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has +contrived. The interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly +by the tall edifices that rose on the opposite side of the street, +and partly by the immense show-bills of blue and crimson paper that +were expanded over each of the three windows. Undisturbed by the +tramp of feet, the rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the shout +of the city crier, the scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of +the multitudinous life that surged along in front of the office, the +figure at the desk pored diligently over a folio volume, of ledger-like +size and aspect, He looked like the spirit of a record--the +soul of his own great volume made visible in mortal shape. + +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door +of some individual from the busy population whose vicinity was +manifested by so much buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a +thriving mechanic in quest of a tenement that should come within his +moderate means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish girl from the banks of +Killarney, wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our land, while her +heart still hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, a +single gentleman looking out for economical board; and now--for this +establishment offered an epitome of worldly pursuits--it was a faded +beauty inquiring for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his +lost shadow; or an author of ten years' standing, for his vanished +reputation; or a moody man, for yesterday's sunshine. + +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat +awry upon his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, +his eyes staring in directions opposite to their intelligence, and a +certain odd unsuitableness pervading his whole figure. Wherever he +might chance to be, whether in palace or cottage, church or market, +on land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he must have worn the +characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. + +"This," inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,--"this is the Central Intelligence Office?" + +"Even so," answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of +his volume; he then looked the applicant in the face and said +briefly, "Your business?" + +"I want," said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, "a place!" + +"A place! and of what nature?" asked the Intelligencer. "There are +many vacant, or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, +since they range from that of a footman up to a seat at the +council-board, or in the cabinet, or a throne, or a presidential +chair." + +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, +dissatisfied air,--a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a +slight contortion of the brow,--an earnestness of glance, that asked +and expected, yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short, +he evidently wanted, not in a physical or intellectual sense, but +with an urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of all things to +satisfy, since it knows not its own object. + +"Ah, you mistake me!" said he at length, with a gesture of nervous +impatience. "Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer +my purpose; or, more probably, none of them. I want my place! my +own place! my true place in the world! my proper sphere! my thing to +do, which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus +awry, and which I have vainly sought all my lifetime! Whether it be +a footman's duty or a king's is of little consequence, so it be +naturally mine. Can you help me here?" + +"I will enter your application," answered the Intelligencer, at the +same time writing a few lines in his volume. "But to undertake such +a business, I tell you frankly, is quite apart from the ground +covered by my official duties. Ask for something specific, and it +may doubtless be negotiated for you, on your compliance with the +conditions. But were I to go further, I should have the whole +population of the city upon my shoulders; since far the greater +proportion of them are, more or less, in your predicament." + +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the +door without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the +disappointment, he was probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch +as the fatality of such people never deserts them, and, whether +alive or dead, they are invariably out of place. + +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth +entered hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain +whether the man of intelligence was alone. He then approached close +to the desk, blushed like a maiden, and seemed at a loss how to +broach his business. + +"You come upon an affair of the heart," said the official personage, +looking into him through his mysterious spectacles. "State it in as +few words as may be." + +"You are right," replied the youth. "I have a heart to dispose of." + +"You seek an exchange?" said the Intelligencer. "Foolish youth, why +not be contented with your own?" + +"Because," exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a +passionate glow,--"because my heart burns me with an intolerable +fire; it tortures me all day long with yearnings for I know not +what, and feverish throbbings, and the pangs of a vague sorrow; and +it awakens me in the night-time with a quake, when there is nothing +to be feared. I cannot endure it any longer. It were wiser to +throw away such a heart, even if it brings me nothing in return." + +"O, very well," said the man of office, making an entry in his +volume. "Your affair will be easily transacted. This species of +brokerage makes no inconsiderable part of my business; and there is +always a large assortment of the article to select from. Here, if I +mistake not, comes a pretty fair sample." + +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, +affording a glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as +she timidly entered, seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of +the outer atmosphere into the somewhat gloomy apartment. We know +not her errand there, nor can we reveal whether the young man gave +up his heart into her custody. If so, the arrangement was neither +better nor worse than in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, where +the parallel sensibilities of a similar age, importunate affections, +and the easy satisfaction of characters not deeply conscious of +themselves, supply the place of any profounder sympathy. + +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections +an office of so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in +proportion to the cases that came under an ordinary rule, but still +it did happen, that a heart was occasionally brought hither of such +exquisite material, so delicately attempered, and so curiously +wrought, that no other heart could be found to match it. It might +almost be considered a misfortune, in a worldly point of view, to be +the possessor of such a diamond of the purest water; since in any +reasonable probability it could only be exchanged for an ordinary +pebble, or a bit of cunningly manufactured glass, or, at least, for +a jewel of native richness, but ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or +an earthy vein running through its central lustre. To choose +another figure, it is sad that hearts which have their wellspring in +the infinite, and contain inexhaustible sympathies, should ever be +doomed to pour themselves into shallow vessels, and thus lavish +their rich affections on the ground. Strange that the finer and +deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while possessed of every +other delicate instinct, should so often lack that most invaluable +one of preserving itself front contamination with what is of a baser +kind! Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual fountain is kept pure by +a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into the light of heaven +without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had gushed +upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with +the pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. +But these miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are +far beyond the scope of such a superficial agent in human affairs as +the figure in the mysterious spectacles. + +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a +fresher reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a +man of woe-begone and downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he +had lost the very soul out of his body, and had traversed all the +world over, searching in the dust of the highways, and along the +shady footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, and among the +sands of the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent +an anxious glance along the pavement of the street as he came +hitherward; he looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon +the floor of the room; and, finally, coming up to the Man of +Intelligence, he gazed through the inscrutable spectacles which the +latter wore, as if the lost treasure might be hidden within his +eyes. + +"I have lost--" he began; and then he paused. + +"Yes," said the Intelligencer, "I see that you have lost,--but +what?" + +"I have lost a precious jewel!" replied the unfortunate person, "the +like of which is not to be found among any prince's treasures. +While I possessed it, the contemplation of it was my sole and +sufficient happiness. No price should have purchased it of me; but +it has fallen from my bosom where I wore it in my careless +wanderings about the city." + +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, +the Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has +been mentioned as forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here +were deposited whatever articles had been picked up in the streets, +until the right owners should claim them. It was a strange and +heterogeneous collection. Not the least remarkable part of it was a +great number of wedding-rings, each one of which had been riveted +upon the finger with holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the +most solemn rites could attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too +slippery for the wearer's vigilance. The gold of some was worn +thin, betokening the attrition of years of wedlock; others, +glittering from the jeweller's shop, must have been lost within the +honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the leaves scribbled over with +sentiments that had been the deepest truths of the writer's earlier +years, but which were now quite obliterated from his memory. So +scrupulously were articles preserved in this depository, that not +even withered flowers were rejected; white roses, and blush-roses, +and moss-roses, fit emblems of virgin purity and shamefacedness, +which bad been lost or flung away, and trampled into the pollution +of the streets; locks of hair,--the golden and the glossy dark,--the +long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of man, signified that +lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted to them +as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many of +these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent +had departed from the lives of their former possessors ever since +they had so wilfully or negligently lost them. Here were gold +pencil-cases, little ruby hearts with golden arrows through them, +bosom-pins, pieces of coin, and small articles of every description, +comprising nearly all that have been lost since a long time ago. +Most of them, doubtless, had a history and a meaning, if there were +time to search it out and room to tell it. Whoever has missed +anything valuable, whether out of his heart, mind, or pocket, would +do well to make inquiry at the Central Intelligence Office. + +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the +soul of celestial purity, congealed and polished. + +"There is my jewel! my very pearl!" cried the stranger, almost +beside himself with rapture. "It is mine! Give it me this moment! +or I shall perish!" + +"I perceive," said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more +closely, "that this is the Pearl of Great Price!" + +"The very same," answered the stranger. "Judge, then, of my misery +at losing it out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live +without it an instant to longer." + +"Pardon me," rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, "you ask what is +beyond my duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a +peculiar tenure; and having once let it escape from your keeping, +you have no greater claim to it--nay, not so great--as any other +person. I cannot give it back." + +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man--who saw before his +eyes the jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it--soften +the heart of this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though +exercising such an apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally +the loser of the inestimable pearl clutched his hands among his +hair, and ran madly forth into the world, which was affrighted at +his desperate looks. There passed him on the doorstep a fashionable +young gentleman, whose business was to inquire for a damask rosebud, +the gift of his lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole +within a hour after receiving it. So various were the errands of +those who visited this Central Office, where all human wishes seemed +to be made known, and, so far as destiny would allow, negotiated to +their fulfilment. + +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the +look of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He had +just alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had orders to +wait in the street while its owner transacted his business. This +person came up to the desk with a quick, determined step, and looked +the Intelligencer in the face with a resolute eye; though, at the +same time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky +light. + +"I have an estate to dispose of," said he, with a brevity that +seemed characteristic. + +"Describe it," said the Intelligencer. + +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its +nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, +in ample circuit; together with a mansion-house, in the construction +of which it had been his object to realize a castle in the air, +hardening its shadowy walls into granite, and rendering its +visionary splendor perceptible to the awakened eye. Judging from his +description, it was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet +substantial enough to endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the +gorgeous furniture, the refinements of upholstery, and all the +luxurious artifices that combined to render this a residence where +life might flow onward in a stream of golden days, undisturbed by +the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it. + +"I am a man of strong will," said he, in conclusion; "and at my +first setting out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved +to make myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, +together with the abundant revenue necessary to uphold it. I have +succeeded to the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate +which I have now concluded to dispose of." + +"And your terms?" asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the +particulars with which the stranger had supplied him. + +"Easy, abundantly easy!" answered the successful man, smiling, but +with a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to +quell an inward pang. "I have been engaged in various sorts of +business,--a distiller, a trader to Africa, an East India merchant, +a speculator in the stocks,--and, in the course of these affairs, +have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser +of the estate shall merely be required to assume this burden to +himself." + +"I understand you," said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen +behind his ear. "I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these +conditions. Very probably the next possessor may acquire the estate +with a similar encumbrance, but it will be of his own contracting, +and will not lighten your burden in the least." + +"And am I to live on," fiercely exclaimed the stranger, "with the +dirt of these accursed acres and the granite of this infernal +mansion crushing down my soul? How, if I should turn the edifice +into an almshouse or a hospital, or tear it down and build a +church?" + +"You can at least make the experiment," said the Intelligencer; "but +the whole matter is one which you must settle for yourself." + +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, +which rattled off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden +with the weight of much land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps +of gold, all compressed into an evil conscience. + +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most +noteworthy of whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself +out to be one of the bad spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in +his laboratory. He pretended to show a certificate of character, +which, he averred, had been given him by that famous necromancer, +and countersigned by several masters whom he had subsequently +served. + +"I am afraid, my good friend," observed the Intelligencer, "that +your chance of getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the +evil spirit for themselves and their neighbors, and play the part +more effectually than ninety-nine out of a hundred of your +fraternity." + +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, +being about to vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and +chagrin, the editor of a political newspaper chanced to enter the +office in quest of a scribbler of party paragraphs. The former +servant of Dr. Faustus, with some misgivings as to his sufficiency +of venom, was allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next +appeared, likewise seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who +had aided Bonaparte in his ascent to imperial power. He was +examined as to his qualifications by an aspiring politician, but +finally rejected, as lacking familiarity with the cunning tactics of +the present day. + +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if +everybody turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to +record here some want, or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or +possessions, of which they wished to negotiate the sale. A China +merchant had lost his health by a long residence in that wasting +climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth +along with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. +A soldier offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that +which it had cost him on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch +desired nothing but to be accommodated with any creditable method of +laying down his life; for misfortune and pecuniary troubles had so +subdued his spirits that he could no longer conceive the possibility +of happiness, nor had the heart to try for it. Nevertheless, +happening to, overhear some conversation in the Intelligence Office +respecting wealth to be rapidly accumulated by a certain mode of +speculation, he resolved to live out this one other experiment of +better fortune. Many persons desired to exchange their youthful +vices for others better suited to the gravity of advancing age; a +few, we are glad to say, made earnest, efforts to exchange vice for +virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, succeeded in effecting it. +But it was remarkable that what all were the least willing to give +up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the habits, the +oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous +indulgences, somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody +but themselves could understand the fascination. + +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these +freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate +longings of miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, +would be curious reading were it possible to obtain it for +publication. Human character in its individual developments-human +nature in the mass--may best be studied in its wishes; and this was +the record of them all. There was an endless diversity of mode and +circumstance, yet withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, +that any one page of the volume-whether written in the days before +the Flood, or the yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written +on the morrow that is close at hand, or a thousand ages hence--might +serve as a specimen of the whole. Not but that there were wild +sallies of fantasy that could scarcely occur to more than one man's +brain, whether reasonable or lunatic. The strangest wishes--yet +most incident to men who had gone deep into scientific pursuits, and +attained a high intellectual stage, though not the loftiest--were, +to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or some +power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She +loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries +that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new +minerals, to produce new forms of vegetable life, to create an +insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is a sort of wish +that has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An +astronomer, who lived far more among the distant worlds of space +than in this lower sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite +side of the moon, which, unless the system of the firmament be +reversed, she can never turn towards the earth. On the same page of +the volume was written the wish of a little child to have the stars +for playthings. + +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome +recurrence, was, of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from +a few shillings up to unreckonable thousands. But in reality this +often-repeated expression covered as many different desires. Wealth +is the golden essence of the outward world, embodying almost +everything that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and therefore +it is the natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we +find ourselves, and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, +that men abridge into this general wish. Here and there, it is true, +the volume testified to some heart so perverted as to desire gold +for its own sake. Many wished for power; a strange desire indeed, +since it is but another form of slavery. Old people wished for the +delights of youth; a fop for a fashionable coat; an idle reader, for +a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a +painter, for Titian's secret of coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a +republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his +neighbor's wife; a man of palate, for green peas; and a poor man, +for a crust of bread. The ambitious desires of public men, elsewhere +so craftily concealed, were here expressed openly and boldly, side +by side with the unselfish wishes of the philanthropist for the +welfare of the race, so beautiful, so comforting, in contrast with +the egotism that continually weighed self against the world. Into +the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we will not penetrate. + +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, +perusing this volume carefully and comparing its records with men's +perfected designs, as expressed in their deeds and daily life, to +ascertain how far the one accorded with the other. Undoubtedly, in +most cases, the correspondence would be found remote. The holy and +generous wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart towards +heaven, often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. +The foul, selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a +corrupted heart, often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without +being concreted into an earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably +truer, as a representation of the human heart, than is the living +drama of action as it evolves around us. There is more of good and +more of evil in it; more redeeming points of the bad and more errors +of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, and baser degradation of the +soul; in short, a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue +than we witness in the outward world. Decency and external +conscience often produce a far fairer outside than is warranted by +the stains within. And be it owned, oil the other hand, that a man +seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than he realizes in +act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or other, have +arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him in this +volume. Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man +shudder for his own wild and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, +whose whole life is the incarnation of a wicked desire. + +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,--a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some +portion of what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of +Intelligence. A grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the +office, with such an earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his +white hair floated backward as he hurried up to the desk, while his +dim eyes caught a momentary lustre from his vehemence of purpose. +This venerable figure explained that he was in search of To-morrow. + +"I have spent all my life in pursuit of it," added the sage old +gentleman, "being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or +other in store for me. But I am now getting a little in years, and +must make haste; for, unless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to +be afraid it will finally escape me." + +"This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend," said the Man of +Intelligence, "is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his +father into the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and +you will doubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts +which you expect, he has scattered them all among a throng of +Yesterdays." + +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the +grandsire hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the +floor; and, as he disappeared, a little boy scampered through the +door in chase of a butterfly which had got astray amid the barren +sunshine of the city. Had the old gentleman been shrewder, he might +have detected To-morrow under the semblance of that gaudy insect. +The golden butterfly glistened through the shadowy apartment, and +brushed its wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered forth +again with the child still in pursuit. + +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a +thinker, but somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His +face was full of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute +beneath. Though harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a +large, warm heart, which had force enough to heat his powerful +intellect through and through. He advanced to the Intelligencer and +looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity that perhaps few +secrets were beyond its scope. + +"I seek for Truth," said he. + +"It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my +cognizance," replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new +inscription in his volume. "Most men seek to impose some cunning +falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can lend no help to your +researches. You must achieve the miracle for yourself. At some +fortunate moment you may find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may +be mistily discerned far in advance, or possibly behind you." + +"Not behind me," said the seeker; "for I have left nothing on my +track without a thorough investigation. She flits before me, +passing now through a naked solitude, and now mingling with the +throng of a popular assembly, and now writing with the pen of a +French philosopher, and now standing at the altar of an old +cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic priest, performing the high +mass. O weary search! But I must not falter; and surely my +heart-deep quest of Truth shall avail at last." + +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of +this being, wholly regardless of his external development. + +"And what are you?" said he. "It will not satisfy me to point to +this fantastic show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of +business. Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real agency in +life and your influence upon mankind." + +"Yours is a mind," answered the Man of Intelligence, "before which +the forms and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the +multitude vanish at once and leave the naked reality beneath. Know, +then, the secret. My agency in worldly action, my connection with +the press, and tumult, and intermingling, and development of human +affairs, is merely delusive. The desire of man's heart does for him +whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action, but the +Recording Spirit." + +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as +the roar of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of +the jostling masses, the rush and tumult of man's life, in its noisy +and brief career, arose so high that it drowned the words of these +two talkers; and whether they stood talking in the moon, or in +Vanity Fair, or in a city of this actual world, is more than I can +say. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses +From An Old Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** + +***** This file should be named 9229.txt or 9229.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/2/9229/ + +Produced by David Widger. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9229] +[This file was first posted on September 6, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE + + + +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a +pen behind his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a +metropolitan office. The apartment was fitted up with a counter, +and furnished with an oaken cabinet and a Chair or two, in simple +and business-like style. Around the walls were stuck advertisements +of articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed of; +in one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has +contrived. The interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly +by the tall edifices that rose on the opposite side of the street, +and partly by the immense show-bills of blue and crimson paper that +were expanded over each of the three windows. Undisturbed by the +tramp of feet, the rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the shout +of the city crier, the scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of +the multitudinous life that surged along in front of the office, the +figure at the desk pored diligently over a folio volume, of ledger- +like size and aspect, He looked like the spirit of a record--the +soul of his own great volume made visible in mortal shape. + +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door +of some individual from the busy population whose vicinity was +manifested by so much buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a +thriving mechanic in quest of a tenement that should come within his +moderate means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish girl from the banks of +Killarney, wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our land, while her +heart still hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, a +single gentleman looking out for economical board; and now--for this +establishment offered an epitome of worldly pursuits--it was a faded +beauty inquiring for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his +lost shadow; or an author of ten years' standing, for his vanished +reputation; or a moody man, for yesterday's sunshine. + +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat +awry upon his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, +his eyes staring in directions opposite to their intelligence, and a +certain odd unsuitableness pervading his whole figure. Wherever he +might chance to be, whether in palace or cottage, church or market, +on land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he must have worn the +characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. + +"This," inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,--"this is the Central Intelligence Office?" + +"Even so," answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of +his volume; he then looked the applicant in the face and said +briefly, "Your business?" + +"I want," said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, "a place!" + +"A place! and of what nature?" asked the Intelligencer. "There are +many vacant, or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, +since they range from that of a footman up to a seat at the council- +board, or in the cabinet, or a throne, or a presidential chair." + +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, +dissatisfied air,--a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a +slight contortion of the brow,--an earnestness of glance, that asked +and expected, yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short, +he evidently wanted, not in a physical or intellectual sense, but +with an urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of all things to +satisfy, since it knows not its own object. + +"Ah, you mistake me!" said he at length, with a gesture of nervous +impatience. " Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer +my purpose; or, more probably, none of them. I want my place! my +own place! my true place in the world! my proper sphere! my thing to +do, which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus +awry, and which I have vainly sought all my lifetime! Whether it be +a footman's duty or a king's is of little consequence, so it be +naturally mine. Can you help me here?" + +"I will enter your application," answered the Intelligencer, at the +same time writing a few lines in his volume. "But to undertake such +a business, I tell you frankly, is quite apart from the ground +covered by my official duties. Ask for something specific, and it +may doubtless be negotiated for you, on your compliance with the +conditions. But were I to go further, I should have the whole +population of the city upon my shoulders; since far the greater +proportion of them are, more or less, in your predicament." + +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the +door without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the +disappointment, he was probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch +as the fatality of such people never deserts them, and, whether +alive or dead, they are invariably out of place. + +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth +entered hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain +whether the man of intelligence was alone. He then approached close +to the desk, blushed like a maiden, and seemed at a loss how to +broach his business. + +"You come upon an affair of the heart," said the official personage, +looking into him through his mysterious spectacles. "State it in as +few words as may be." + +"You are right," replied the youth. "I have a heart to dispose of." + +"You seek an exchange?" said the Intelligencer. "Foolish youth, why +not be contented with your own?" + +"Because," exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a +passionate glow,--"because my heart burns me with an intolerable +fire; it tortures me all day long with yearnings for I know not +what, and feverish throbbings, and the pangs of a vague sorrow; and +it awakens me in the night-time with a quake, when there is nothing +to be feared. I cannot endure it any longer. It were wiser to +throw away such a heart, even if it brings me nothing in return." + +"O, very well," said the man of office, making an entry in his +volume. "Your affair will be easily transacted. This species of +brokerage makes no inconsiderable part of my business; and there is +always a large assortment of the article to select from. Here, if I +mistake not, comes a pretty fair sample." + +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, +affording a glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as +she timidly entered, seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of +the outer atmosphere into the somewhat gloomy apartment. We know +not her errand there, nor can we reveal whether the young man gave +up his heart into her custody. If so, the arrangement was neither +better nor worse than in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, where +the parallel sensibilities of a similar age, importunate affections, +and the easy satisfaction of characters not deeply conscious of +themselves, supply the place of any profounder sympathy. + +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections +an office of so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in +proportion to the cases that came under an ordinary rule, but still +it did happen, that a heart was occasionally brought hither of such +exquisite material, so delicately attempered, and so curiously +wrought, that no other heart could be found to match it. It might +almost be considered a misfortune, in a worldly point of view, to be +the possessor of such a diamond of the purest water; since in any +reasonable probability it could only be exchanged for an ordinary +pebble, or a bit of cunningly manufactured glass, or, at least, for +a jewel of native richness, but ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or +an earthy vein running through its central lustre. To choose +another figure, it is sad that hearts which have their wellspring in +the infinite, and contain inexhaustible sympathies, should ever be +doomed to pour themselves into shallow vessels, and thus lavish +their rich affections on the ground. Strange that the finer and +deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while possessed of every +other delicate instinct, should so often lack that most invaluable +one of preserving itself front contamination with what is of a baser +kind! Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual fountain is kept pure by +a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into the light of heaven +without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had gushed +upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with +the pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. +But these miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are +far beyond the scope of such a superficial agent in human affairs as +the figure in the mysterious spectacles. + +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a +fresher reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a +man of woe-begone and downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he +had lost the very soul out of his body, and had traversed all the +world over, searching in the dust of the highways, and along the +shady footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, and among the +sands of the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent +an anxious glance along the pavement of the street as he came +hitherward; he looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon +the floor of the room; and, finally, coming up to the Man of +Intelligence, he gazed through the inscrutable spectacles which the +latter wore, as if the lost treasure might be hidden within his +eyes. + +"I have lost--" he began; and then he paused. + +"Yes," said the Intelligencer, "I see that you have lost,--but +what?" + +"I have lost a precious jewel!" replied the unfortunate person, "the +like of which is not to be found among any prince's treasures. +While I possessed it, the contemplation of it was my sole and +sufficient happiness. No price should have purchased it of me; but +it has fallen from my bosom where I wore it in my careless +wanderings about the city." + +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, +the Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has +been mentioned as forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here +were deposited whatever articles had been picked up in the streets, +until the right owners should claim them. It was a strange and +heterogeneous collection. Not the least remarkable part of it was a +great number of wedding-rings, each one of which had been riveted +upon the finger with holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the +most solemn rites could attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too +slippery for the wearer's vigilance. The gold of some was worn +thin, betokening the attrition of years of wedlock; others, +glittering from the jeweller's shop, must have been lost within the +honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the leaves scribbled over with +sentiments that had been the deepest truths of the writer's earlier +years, but which were now quite obliterated from his memory. So +scrupulously were articles preserved in this depository, that not +even withered flowers were rejected; white roses, and blush-roses, +and moss-roses, fit emblems of virgin purity and shamefacedness, +which bad been lost or flung away, and trampled into the pollution +of the streets; locks of hair,--the golden and the glossy dark,--the +long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of man, signified that +lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted to them +as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many of +these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent +had departed from the lives of their former possessors ever since +they had so wilfully or negligently lost them. Here were gold +pencil-cases, little ruby hearts with golden arrows through them, +bosom-pins, pieces of coin, and small articles of every description, +comprising nearly all that have been lost since a long time ago. +Most of them, doubtless, had a history and a meaning, if there were +time to search it out and room to tell it. Whoever has missed +anything valuable, whether out of his heart, mind, or pocket, would +do well to make inquiry at the Central Intelligence Office. + +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the +soul of celestial purity, congealed and polished. + +"There is my jewel! my very pearl!" cried the stranger, almost +beside himself with rapture. "It is mine! Give it me this moment! +or I shall perish!" + +"I perceive," said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more +closely, "that this is the Pearl of Great Price!" + +"The very same," answered the stranger. "Judge, then, of my misery +at losing it out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live +without it an instant to longer." + +"Pardon me," rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, "you ask what is +beyond my duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a +peculiar tenure; and having once let it escape from your keeping, +you have no greater claim to it--nay, not so great--as any other +person. I cannot give it back." + +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man--who saw before his +eyes the jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it--soften +the heart of this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though +exercising such an apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally +the loser of the inestimable pearl clutched his hands among his +hair, and ran madly forth into the world, which was affrighted at +his desperate looks. There passed him on the doorstep a fashionable +young gentleman, whose business was to inquire for a damask rosebud, +the gift of his lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole +within a hour after receiving it. So various were the errands of +those who visited this Central Office, where all human wishes seemed +to be made known, and, so far as destiny would allow, negotiated to +their fulfilment. + +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the +look of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He had +just alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had orders to +wait in the street while its owner transacted his business. This +person came up to the desk with a quick, determined step, and looked +the Intelligencer in the face with a resolute eye; though, at the +same time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky +light. + +"I have an estate to dispose of," said he, with a brevity that +seemed characteristic. + +"Describe it," said the Intelligencer. + +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its +nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, +in ample circuit; together with a mansion-house, in the construction +of which it had been his object to realize a castle in the air, +hardening its shadowy walls into granite, and rendering its +visionary splendor perceptible to the awakened eye. Judging from his +description, it was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet +substantial enough to endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the +gorgeous furniture, the refinements of upholstery, and all the +luxurious artifices that combined to render this a residence where +life might flow onward in a stream of golden days, undisturbed by +the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it. + +"I am a man of strong will," said he, in conclusion; "and at my +first setting out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved +to make myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, +together with the abundant revenue necessary to uphold it. I have +succeeded to the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate +which I have now concluded to dispose of." + +"And your terms?" asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the +particulars with which the stranger had supplied him. + +"Easy, abundantly easy!" answered the successful man, smiling, but +with a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to +quell an inward pang. "I have been engaged in various sorts of +business,--a distiller, a trader to Africa, an East India merchant, +a speculator in the stocks,--and, in the course of these affairs, +have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser +of the estate shall merely be required to assume this burden to +himself." + +"I understand you," said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen +behind his ear. "I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these +conditions. Very probably the next possessor may acquire the estate +with a similar encumbrance, but it will be of his own contracting, +and will not lighten your burden in the least." + +"And am I to live on," fiercely exclaimed the stranger, "with the +dirt of these accursed acres and the granite of this infernal +mansion crushing down my soul? How, if I should turn the edifice +into an almshouse or a hospital, or tear it down and build a +church?" + +"You can at least make the experiment," said the Intelligencer; "but +the whole matter is one which you must settle for yourself." + +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, +which rattled off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden +with the weight of much land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps +of gold, all compressed into an evil conscience. + +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most +noteworthy of whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself +out to be one of the bad spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in +his laboratory. He pretended to show a certificate of character, +which, he averred, had been given him by that famous necromancer, +and countersigned by several masters whom he had subsequently +served. + +"I am afraid, my good friend," observed the Intelligencer, "that +your chance of getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the +evil spirit for themselves and their neighbors, and play the part +more effectually than ninety-nine out of a hundred of your +fraternity." + +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, +being about to vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and +chagrin, the editor of a political newspaper chanced to enter the +office in quest of a scribbler of party paragraphs. The former +servant of Dr. Faustus, with some misgivings as to his sufficiency +of venom, was allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next +appeared, likewise seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who +had aided Bonaparte in his ascent to imperial power. He was +examined as to his qualifications by an aspiring politician, but +finally rejected, as lacking familiarity with the cunning tactics of +the present day. + +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if +everybody turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to +record here some want, or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or +possessions, of which they wished to negotiate the sale. A China +merchant had lost his health by a long residence in that wasting +climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth +along with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. +A soldier offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that +which it had cost him on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch +desired nothing but to be accommodated with any creditable method of +laying down his life; for misfortune and pecuniary troubles had so +subdued his spirits that he could no longer conceive the possibility +of happiness, nor had the heart to try for it. Nevertheless, +happening to, overhear some conversation in the Intelligence Office +respecting wealth to be rapidly accumulated by a certain mode of +speculation, he resolved to live out this one other experiment of +better fortune. Many persons desired to exchange their youthful +vices for others better suited to the gravity of advancing age; a +few, we are glad to say, made earnest, efforts to exchange vice for +virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, succeeded in effecting it. +But it was remarkable that what all were the least willing to give +up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the habits, the +oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous +indulgences, somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody +but themselves could understand the fascination. + +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these +freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate +longings of miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, +would be curious reading were it possible to obtain it for +publication. Human character in its individual developments-human +nature in the mass--may best be studied in its wishes; and this was +the record of them all. There was an endless diversity of mode and +circumstance, yet withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, +that any one page of the volume-whether written in the days before +the Flood, or the yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written +on the morrow that is close at hand, or a thousand ages hence--might +serve as a specimen of the whole. Not but that there were wild +sallies of fantasy that could scarcely occur to more than one man's +brain, whether reasonable or lunatic. The strangest wishes--yet +most incident to men who had gone deep into scientific pursuits, and +attained a high intellectual stage, though not the loftiest--were, +to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or some +power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She +loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries +that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new +minerals, to produce new forms of vegetable life, to create an +insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is a sort of wish +that has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An +astronomer, who lived far more among the distant worlds of space +than in this lower sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite +side of the moon, which, unless the system of the firmament be +reversed, she can never turn towards the earth. On the same page of +the volume was written the wish of a little child to have the stars +for playthings. + +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome +recurrence, was, of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from +a few shillings up to unreckonable thousands. But in reality this +often-repeated expression covered as many different desires. Wealth +is the golden essence of the outward world, embodying almost +everything that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and therefore +it is the natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we +find ourselves, and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, +that men abridge into this general wish. Here and there, it is true, +the volume testified to some heart so perverted as to desire gold +for its own sake. Many wished for power; a strange desire indeed, +since it is but another form of slavery. Old people wished for the +delights of youth; a fop for a fashionable coat; an idle reader, for +a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a +painter, for Titian's secret of coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a +republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his +neighbor's wife; a man of palate, for green peas; and a poor man, +for a crust of bread. The ambitious desires of public men, elsewhere +so craftily concealed, were here expressed openly and boldly, side +by side with the unselfish wishes of the philanthropist for the +welfare of the race, so beautiful, so comforting, in contrast with +the egotism that continually weighed self against the world. Into +the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we will not penetrate. + +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, +perusing this volume carefully and comparing its records with men's +perfected designs, as expressed in their deeds and daily life, to +ascertain how far the one accorded with the other. Undoubtedly, in +most cases, the correspondence would be found remote. The holy and +generous wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart towards +heaven, often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. +The foul, selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a +corrupted heart, often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without +being concreted into an earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably +truer, as a representation of the human heart, than is the living +drama of action as it evolves around us. There is more of good and +more of evil in it; more redeeming points of the bad and more errors +of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, and baser degradation of the +soul; in short, a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue +than we witness in the outward world. Decency and external +conscience often produce a far fairer outside than is warranted by +the stains within. And be it owned, oil the other hand, that a man +seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than he realizes in +act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or other, have +arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him in this +volume. Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man +shudder for his own wild and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, +whose whole life is the incarnation of a wicked desire. + +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,--a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some +portion of what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of +Intelligence. A grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the +office, with such an earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his +white hair floated backward as he hurried up to the desk, while his +dim eyes caught a momentary lustre from his vehemence of purpose. +This venerable figure explained that he was in search of To-morrow. + +"I have spent all my life in pursuit of it," added the sage old +gentleman, "being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or +other in store for me. But I am now getting a little in years, and +must make haste; for, unless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to +be afraid it will finally escape me." + +"This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend," said the Man of +Intelligence, "is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his +father into the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and +you will doubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts +which you expect, he has scattered them all among a throng of +Yesterdays." + +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the +grandsire hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the +floor; and, as he disappeared, a little boy scampered through the +door in chase of a butterfly which had got astray amid the barren +sunshine of the city. Had the old gentleman been shrewder, he might +have detected To-morrow under the semblance of that gaudy insect. +The golden butterfly glistened through the shadowy apartment, and +brushed its wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered forth +again with the child still in pursuit. + +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a +thinker, but somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His +face was full of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute +beneath. Though harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a +large, warm heart, which had force enough to heat his powerful +intellect through and through. He advanced to the Intelligencer and +looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity that perhaps few +secrets were beyond its scope. + +"I seek for Truth," said he. + +"It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my +cognizance," replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new +inscription in his volume. "Most men seek to impose some cunning +falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can lend no help to your +researches. You must achieve the miracle for yourself. At some +fortunate moment you may find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may +be mistily discerned far in advance, or possibly behind you." + +"Not behind me," said the seeker; "for I have left nothing on my +track without a thorough investigation. She flits before me, +passing now through a naked solitude, and now mingling with the +throng of a popular assembly, and now writing with the pen of a +French philosopher, and now standing at the altar of an old +cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic priest, performing the high +mass. O weary search! But I must not falter; and surely my heart- +deep quest of Truth shall avail at last." + +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of +this being, wholly regardless of his external development. + +"And what are you?" said he. "It will not satisfy me to point to +this fantastic show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of +business. Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real agency in +life and your influence upon mankind." + +"Yours is a mind," answered the Man of Intelligence, "before which +the forms and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the +multitude vanish at once and leave the naked reality beneath. Know, +then, the secret. My agency in worldly action, my connection with +the press, and tumult, and intermingling, and development of human +affairs, is merely delusive. The desire of man's heart does for him +whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action, but the +Recording Spirit." + +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as +the roar of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of +the jostling masses, the rush and tumult of man's life, in its noisy +and brief career, arose so high that it drowned the words of these +two talkers; and whether they stood talking in the moon, or in +Vanity Fair, or in a city of this actual world, is more than I can +say. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE *** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +****** This file should be named haw5610.txt or haw5610.zip ******* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw5611.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw5610a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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