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diff --git a/9232-h/9232-h.htm b/9232-h/9232-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1e3dfa --- /dev/null +++ b/9232-h/9232-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1079 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Passages from a Relinquished Work, by Nathaniel Hawthorne</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Passages from a Relinquished Work, by Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <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: Passages from a Relinquished Work</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 #9232]<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 PASSAGES FROM A RELINQUISHED WORK ***</div> + +<h1>Passages from a Relinquished Work</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>AT HOME</h3> + +<p> +From infancy I was under the guardianship of a village parson, who made me the +subject of daily prayer and the sufferer of innumerable stripes, using no +distinction, as to these marks of paternal love, between myself and his own +three boys. The result, it must be owned, has been very different in their +cases and mine, they being all respectable men and well settled in life; the +eldest as the successor to his father’s pulpit, the second as a physician, and +the third as a partner in a wholesale shoe-store; while I, with better +prospects than either of them, have run the course which this volume will +describe. Yet there is room for doubt whether I should have been any better +contented with such success as theirs than with my own misfortunes,—at +least, till after my experience of the latter had made it too late for another +trial. +</p> + +<p> +My guardian had a name of considerable eminence, and fitter for the place it +occupies in ecclesiastical history than for so frivolous a page as mine. In his +own vicinity, among the lighter part of his hearers, he was called Parson +Thumpcushion, from the very forcible gestures with which he illustrated his +doctrines. Certainly, if his powers as a preacher were to be estimated by the +damage done to his pulpit-furniture, none of his living brethren, and but few +dead ones, would have been worthy even to pronounce a benediction after him. +Such pounding and expounding the moment he began to grow warm, such slapping +with his open palm, thumping with his closed fist, and banging with the whole +weight of the great Bible, convinced me that he held, in imagination, either +the Old Nick or some Unitarian infidel at bay, and belabored his unhappy +cushion as proxy for those abominable adversaries. Nothing but this exercise of +the body while delivering his sermons could have supported the good parson’s +health under the mental toil which they cost him in composition. +</p> + +<p> +Though Parson Thumpcushion had an upright heart, and some called it a warm one, +he was invariably stern and severe, on principle, I suppose, to me. With late +justice, though early enough, even now, to be tinctured with generosity I +acknowledge him to have been a good and wise man after his own fashion. If his +management failed as to myself, it succeeded with his three sons; nor, I must +frankly say, could any mode of education with which it was possible for him to +be acquainted have made me much better than what I was or led me to a happier +fortune than the present. He could neither change the nature that God gave me +nor adapt his own inflexible mind to my peculiar character. Perhaps it was my +chief misfortune that I had neither father nor mother alive; for parents have +an instinctive sagacity in regard to the welfare of their children, and the +child feels a confidence both in the wisdom and affection of his parents which +he cannot transfer to any delegate of their duties, however conscientious. An +orphan’s fate is hard, be he rich or poor. As for Parson Thumpcushion, whenever +I see the old gentleman in my dreams he looks kindly and sorrowfully at me, +holding out his hand as if each had something to forgive. With such kindness +and such forgiveness, but without the sorrow, may our next meeting be! +</p> + +<p> +I was a youth of gay and happy temperament, with an incorrigible levity of +spirit, of no vicious propensities, sensible enough, but wayward and fanciful. +What a character was this to be brought in contact with the stern old Pilgrim +spirit of my guardian! We were at variance on a thousand points; but our chief +and final dispute arose from the pertinacity with which he insisted on my +adopting a particular profession; while I, being heir to a moderate competence, +had avowed my purpose of keeping aloof from the regular business of life. This +would have been a dangerous resolution anywhere in the world; it was fatal in +New England. There is a grossness in the conceptions of my countrymen; they +will not be convinced that any good thing may consist with what they call +idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a young man who neither +studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a store, nor takes to farming, but +manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be satisfied with what his father +left him. The principle is excellent in its general influence, but most +miserable in its effect on the few that violate it. I had a quick sensitiveness +to public opinion, and felt as if it ranked me with the tavern haunters and +town paupers,—with the drunken poet who hawked his own Fourth of July +odes, and the broken soldier who had been good for nothing since last war. The +consequence of all this was a piece of light-hearted desperation. +</p> + +<p> +I do not over-estimate my notoriety when I take it for granted that many of my +readers must have heard of me in the wild way of life which I adopted. The idea +of becoming a wandering story-teller had been suggested, a year or two before, +by an encounter with several merry vagabonds in a showman’s wagon, where they +and I had sheltered ourselves during a summer shower. The project was not more +extravagant than most which a young man forms. Stranger ones are executed every +day; and, not to mention my prototypes in the East, and the wandering orators +and poets whom my own ears have heard, I had the example of one illustrious +itinerant in the other hemisphere,—of Goldsmith, who planned and +performed his travels through France and Italy on a less promising scheme than +mine. I took credit to myself for various qualifications, mental and personal, +suited to the undertaking. Besides, my mind had latterly tormented me for +employment, keeping up an irregular activity even in sleep, and making me +conscious that I must toil, if it were but in catching butterflies. But my +chief motives were, discontent with home and a bitter grudge against Parson +Thumpcushion, who would rather have laid me in my father’s tomb than seen me +either a novelist or an actor, two characters which I thus hit upon a method of +uniting. After all, it was not half so foolish as if I had written romances +instead of reciting them. +</p> + +<p> +The following pages will contain a picture of my vagrant life, intermixed with +specimens, generally brief and slight, of that great mass of fiction to which I +gave existence, and which has vanished like cloud-shapes. Besides the occasions +when I sought a pecuniary reward, I was accustomed to exercise my narrative +faculty wherever chance had collected a little audience idle enough to listen. +These rehearsals were useful in testing the strong points of my stories; and, +indeed, the flow of fancy soon came upon me so abundantly that its indulgence +was its own reward, though the hope of praise also became a powerful +incitement. Since I shall never feel the warm gush of new thought as I did +then, let me beseech the reader to believe that my tales were not always so +cold as he may find them now. With each specimen will be given a sketch of the +circumstances in which the story was told. Thus my air-drawn pictures will be +set in frames perhaps more valuable than the pictures themselves, since they +will be embossed with groups of characteristic figures, amid the lake and +mountain scenery, the villages and fertile fields, of our native land. But I +write the book for the sake of its moral, which many a dreaming youth may +profit by, though it is the experience of a wandering story-teller. +</p> + +<h3>A FLIGHT IN THE FOG.</h3> + +<p> +I set out on my rambles one morning in June about sunrise. The day promised to +be fair, though at that early hour a heavy mist lay along the earth and settled +in minute globules on the folds of my clothes, so that I looked precisely as if +touched with a hoar-frost. The sky was quite obscured, and the trees and houses +invisible till they grew out of the fog as I came close upon them. There is a +hill towards the west whence the road goes abruptly down, holding a level +course through the village and ascending an eminence on the other side, behind +which it disappears. The whole view comprises an extent of half a mile. Here I +paused; and, while gazing through the misty veil, it partially rose and swept +away with so sudden an effect that a gray cloud seemed to have taken the aspect +of a small white town. A thin vapor being still diffused through the +atmosphere, the wreaths and pillars of fog, whether hung in air or based on +earth, appeared not less substantial than the edifices, and gave their own +indistinctness to the whole. It was singular that such an unromantic scene +should look so visionary. +</p> + +<p> +Half of the parson’s dwelling was a dingy white house, and half of it was a +cloud; but Squire Moody’s mansion, the grandest in the village, was wholly +visible, even the lattice-work of the balcony under the front window; while in +another place only two red chimneys were seen above the mist, appertaining to +my own paternal residence, then tenanted by strangers. I could not remember +those with whom I had dwelt there, not even my mother. The brick edifice of the +bank was in the clouds; the foundations of what was to be a great block of +buildings had vanished, ominously, as it proved; the dry-goods store of Mr. +Nightingale seemed a doubtful concern; and Dominicus Pike’s tobacco manufactory +an affair of smoke, except the splendid image of an Indian chief in front. The +white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of the densest heap of vapor, as +if that shadowy base were its only support: or, to give a truer interpretation, +the steeple was the emblem of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet +pointing to a cloudless atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on +its gilded vane. +</p> + +<p> +As I beheld these objects, and the dewy street, with grassy intervals and a +border of trees between the wheeltrack and the sidewalks, all so indistinct, +and not to be traced without an effort, the whole seemed more like memory than +reality. I would have imagined that years had already passed, and I was far +away, contemplating that dim picture of my native place, which I should retain +in my mind through the mist of time. No tears fell from my eyes among the +dewdrops of the morning; nor does it occur to me that I heaved a sigh. In +truth, I had never felt such a delicious excitement nor known what freedom was +till that moment when I gave up my home and took the whole world in exchange, +fluttering the wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to +another through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky village, bade +it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path but that which might +lead me back. Never was Childe Harold’s sentiment adopted in a spirit more +unlike his own. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the knight and +Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso, I began, +between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was gratified, and by a +more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the dappled ass or the neigh of +Rosinante. The sun, then just above the horizon, shone faintly through the fog, +and formed a species of rainbow in the west, bestriding my intended road like a +gigantic portal. I had never known before that a bow could be generated between +the sunshine and the morning mist. It had no brilliancy, no perceptible hues, +but was a mere unpainted framework, as white and ghostlike as the lunar +rainbow, which is deemed ominous of evil. But, with a light heart, to which all +omens were propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway of futurity. +</p> + +<p> +I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred miles of home, +and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The first precaution was +reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion might have put an untimely +catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would be much affected by my disgrace, +and all was to be suffered in my own person, I know not why I cared about a +name. For a week or two I travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any +guidance except the whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green +bough that beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger +onward. All my care was to be farther from home each night than the preceding +morning. +</p> + +<h3>A FELLOW-TRAVELLER.</h3> + +<p> +One day at noontide, when the sun had burst suddenly out of a cloud, and +threatened to dissolve me, I looked round for shelter, whether of tavern, +cottage, barn, or shady tree. The first which offered itself was a +wood,—not a forest, but a trim plantation of young oaks, growing just +thick enough to keep the mass of sunshine out, while they admitted a few +straggling beams, and thus produced the most cheerful gloom imaginable. A +brook, so small and clear, and apparently so cool, that I wanted to drink it +up, ran under the road through a little arch of stone without once meeting the +sun in its passage from the shade on one side to the shade on the other. As +there was a stepping-place over the stone wall and a path along the rivulet, I +followed it and discovered its source,—a spring gushing out of an old +barrel. +</p> + +<p> +In this pleasant spot I saw a light pack suspended from the branch of a tree, a +stick leaning against the trunk, and a person seated on the grassy verge of the +spring, with his back towards me. He was a slender figure, dressed in black +broadcloth, which was none of the finest nor very fashionably cut. On hearing +my footsteps he started up rather nervously, and, turning round, showed the +face of a young man about my own age, with his finger in a volume which he had +been reading till my intrusion. His book was evidently a pocket Bible. Though I +piqued myself at that period on my great penetration into people’s characters +and pursuits, I could not decide whether this young man in black were an +unfledged divine from Andover, a college student, or preparing for college at +some academy. In either case I would quite as willingly have found a merrier +companion; such, for instance, as the comedian with whom Gil Blas shared his +dinner beside a fountain in Spain. +</p> + +<p> +After a nod, which was duly returned, I made a goblet of oak-leaves, filled and +emptied it two or three times, and then remarked, to hit the stranger’s +classical associations, that this beautiful fountain ought to flow from an urn +instead of an old barrel. He did not show that he understood the allusion, and +replied very briefly, with a shyness that was quite out of place between +persons who met in such circumstances. Had he treated my next observation in +the same way, we should have parted without another word. +</p> + +<p> +“It is very singular,” said I,—“though doubtless there are good reasons +for it,—that Nature should provide drink so abundantly, and lavish it +everywhere by the roadside, but so seldom anything to eat. Why should not we +find a loaf of bread on this tree as well as a barrel of good liquor at the +foot of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a loaf of bread on the tree,” replied the stranger, without even +smiling—at a coincidence which made me laugh. “I have something to eat in +my bundle; and, if you can make a dinner with me, you shall be welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +“I accept your offer with pleasure,” said I. “A pilgrim such as I am must not +refuse a providential meal.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man had risen to take his bundle from the branch of the tree, but now +turned round and regarded me with great earnestness, coloring deeply at the +same time. However, he said nothing, and produced part of a loaf of bread and +some cheese, the former being evidently home baked, though some days out of the +oven. The fare was good enough, with a real welcome, such as his appeared to +be. After spreading these articles on the stump of a tree, he proceeded to ask +a blessing on our food, an unexpected ceremony, and quite an impressive one at +our woodland table, with the fountain gushing beside us and the bright sky +glimmering through the boughs; nor did his brief petition affect me less +because his embarrassment made his voice tremble. At the end of the meal he +returned thanks with the same tremulous fervor. +</p> + +<p> +He felt a natural kindness for me after thus relieving my necessities, and +showed it by becoming less reserved. On my part, I professed never to have +relished a dinner better; and, in requital of the stranger’s hospitality, +solicited the pleasure of his company to supper. +</p> + +<p> +“Where? At your home?” asked he. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said I, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps our roads are not the same,” observed he. +</p> + +<p> +“O, I can take any road but one, and yet not miss my way,” answered I. “This +morning I breakfasted at home; I shall sup at home to-night; and a moment ago I +dined at home. To be sure, there was a certain place which I called home; but I +have resolved not to see it again till I have been quite round the globe and +enter the street on the east as I left it on the west. In the mean time, I have +a home everywhere, or nowhere, just as you please to take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere, then; for this transitory world is not our home,” said the young man, +with solemnity. “We are all pilgrims and wanderers; but it is strange that we +two should meet.” +</p> + +<p> +I inquired the meaning of this remark, but could obtain no satisfactory reply. +But we had eaten salt together, and it was right that we should form +acquaintance after that ceremony as the Arabs of the desert do, especially as +he had learned something about myself, and the courtesy of the country entitled +me to as much information in return. I asked whither he was travelling. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” said he; “but God knows.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is strange!” exclaimed I; “not that God should know it, but that you +should not. And how is your road to be pointed out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps by an inward conviction,” he replied, looking sideways at me to +discover whether I smiled; “perhaps by an outward sign.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, believe me,” said I, “the outward sign is already granted you, and the +inward conviction ought to follow. We are told of pious men in old times who +committed themselves to the care of Providence, and saw the manifestation of +its will in the slightest circumstances, as in the shooting of a star, the +flight of a bird, or the course taken by some brute animal. Sometimes even a +stupid ass was their guide. May I not be as good a one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” said the pilgrim, with perfect simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +We did, however, follow the same road, and were not overtaken, as I partly +apprehended, by the keepers of any lunatic asylum in pursuit of a stray +patient. Perhaps the stranger felt as much doubt of my sanity as I did of his, +though certainly with less justice, since I was fully aware of my own +extravagances, while he acted as wildly, and deemed it heavenly wisdom. We were +a singular couple, strikingly contrasted, yet curiously assimilated, each of us +remarkable enough by himself, and doubly so in the other’s company. Without any +formal compact, we kept together day after day till our union appeared +permanent. Even had I seen nothing to love and admire in him, I could never +have thought of deserting one who needed me continually; for I never knew a +person; not even a woman, so unfit to roam the world in solitude as he +was,—so painfully shy, so easily discouraged by slight obstacles, and so +often depressed by a weight within himself. +</p> + +<p> +I was now far from my native place, but had not yet stepped before the public. +A slight tremor seized me whenever I thought of relinquishing the immunities of +a private character, and giving every man, and for money too, the right which +no man yet possessed, of treating me with open scorn. But about a week after +contracting the above alliance I made my bow to an audience of nine persons, +seven of whom hissed me in a very disagreeable manner, and not without good +cause. Indeed, the failure was so signal that it would have been mere swindling +to retain the money, which had been paid on my implied contract to give its +value of amusement. So I called in the doorkeeper, bade him refund the whole +receipts, a mighty sum and was gratified with a round of applause by way of +offset to the hisses. This event would have looked most horrible in +anticipation,—a thing to make a man shoot himself, or run amuck, or hide +himself in caverns where he might not see his own burning blush; but the +reality was not so very hard to bear. It is a fact that I was more deeply +grieved by an almost parallel misfortune which happened to my companion on the +same evening. In my own behalf I was angry and excited, not depressed; my blood +ran quick, my spirits rose buoyantly, and I had never felt such a confidence of +future success and determination to achieve it as at that trying moment. I +resolved to persevere, if it were only to wring the reluctant praise from my +enemies. +</p> + +<p> +Hitherto I had immensely underrated the difficulties of my idle trade; now I +recognized that it demanded nothing short of my whole powers cultivated to the +utmost, and exerted with the same prodigality as if I were speaking for a great +party or for the nation at large on the floor of the Capitol. No talent or +attainment could come amiss; everything, indeed, was requisite,—wide +observation, varied knowledge, deep thoughts, and sparkling ones; pathos and +levity, and a mixture of both, like sunshine in a raindrop; lofty imagination, +veiling itself in the garb of common life; and the practised art which alone +could render these gifts, and more than these, available. Not that I ever hoped +to be thus qualified. But my despair was no ignoble one; for, knowing the +impossibility of satisfying myself, even should the world be satisfied, I did +my best to overcome it; investigated the causes of every defect; and strove, +with patient stubbornness, to remove them in the next attempt. It is one of my +few sources of pride, that, ridiculous as the object was, I followed it up with +the firmness and energy of a man. +</p> + +<p> +I manufactured a great variety of plots and skeletons of tales, and kept them +ready for use, leaving the filling up to the inspiration of the moment; though +I cannot remember ever to have told a tale which did not vary considerably from +my preconceived idea, and acquire a novelty of aspect as often as I repeated +it. Oddly enough, my success was generally in proportion to the difference +between the conception and accomplishment. I provided two or more commencements +and catastrophes to many of the tales,—a happy expedient, suggested by +the double sets of sleeves and trimmings which diversified the suits in Sir +Piercy Shafton’s wardrobe. But my best efforts had a unity, a wholeness, and a +separate character that did not admit of this sort of mechanism. +</p> + +<h3>THE VILLAGE THEATRE</h3> + +<p> +About the first of September my fellow-traveller and myself arrived at a +country town, where a small company of actors, on their return from a summer’s +campaign in the British Provinces, were giving a series of dramatic +exhibitions. A moderately sized hall of the tavern had been converted into a +theatre. The performances that evening were, The Heir at Law, and No Song, no +Supper, with the recitation of Alexander’s Feast between the play and farce. +The house was thin and dull. But the next day there appeared to be brighter +prospects, the playbills announcing at every corner, on the town-pump, +and—awful sacrilege!—on the very door of the meeting-house, an +Unprecedented Attraction! After setting forth the ordinary entertainments of a +theatre, the public were informed, in the hugest type that the printing-office +could supply, that the manager had been fortunate enough to accomplish an +engagement with the celebrated Story-Teller. He would make his first appearance +that evening, and recite his famous tale of Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe, +which had been received with rapturous applause by audiences in all the +principal cities. This outrageous flourish of trumpets, be it known, was wholly +unauthorized by me, who had merely made an engagement for a single evening, +without assuming any more celebrity than the little I possessed. As for the +tale, it could hardly have been applauded by rapturous audiences, being as yet +an unfilled plot; nor even when I stepped upon the stage was it decided whether +Mr. Higginbotham should live or die. +</p> + +<p> +In two or three places, underneath the flaming bills which announced the +Story-Teller, was pasted a small slip of paper, giving notice, in tremulous +characters, of a religious meeting to be held at the school-house, where, with +divine permission, Eliakim Abbott would address sinners on the welfare of their +immortal souls. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, after the commencement of the tragedy of Douglas, I took a +ramble through the town to quicken my ideas by active motion. My spirits were +good, with a certain glow of mind which I had already learned to depend upon as +the sure prognostic of success. Passing a small and solitary school-house, +where a light was burning dimly and a few people were entering the door, I went +in with them, and saw my friend Eliakim at the desk. He had collected about +fifteen hearers, mostly females. Just as I entered he was beginning to pray in +accents so low and interrupted that he seemed to doubt the reception of his +efforts both with God and man. There was room for distrust in regard to the +latter. At the conclusion of the prayer several of the little audience went +out, leaving him to begin his discourse under such discouraging circumstances, +added to his natural and agonizing diffidence. Knowing that my presence on +these occasions increased his embarrassment, I had stationed myself in a dusky +place near the door, and now stole softly out. +</p> + +<p> +On my return to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and, being a +feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so much the better +chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged with customers, the +toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in the hall there was a broad, +deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional peal of impatient thunder,—all +symptoms of all overflowing house and an eager audience. I drank a glass of +wine-and-water, and stood at the side scene conversing with a young person of +doubtful sex. If a gentleman, how could he have performed the singing girl the +night before in No Song, no Supper? Or, if a lady, why did she enact Young +Norval, and now wear a green coat and white pantaloons in the character of +Little Pickle? In either case the dress was pretty and the wearer bewitching; +so that, at the proper moment, I stepped forward with a gay heart and a hold +one; while the orchestra played a tune that had resounded at many a country +ball, and the curtain, as it rose, discovered something like a country +bar-room. Such a scene was well enough adapted to such a tale. +</p> + +<p> +The orchestra of our little theatre consisted of two fiddles and a clarinet; +but, if the whole harmony of the Tremont had been there, it might have swelled +in vain beneath the tumult of applause that greeted me. The good people of the +town, knowing that the world contained innumerable persons of celebrity +undreamed of by them, took it for granted that I was one, and that their roar +of welcome was but a feeble echo of those which had thundered around me in +lofty theatres. Such an enthusiastic uproar was never heard. Each person seemed +a Briarcus clapping a hundred hands, besides keeping his feet and several +cudgels in play with stamping and thumping on the floor; while the ladies +flourished their white cambric handkerchiefs, intermixed with yellow and red +bandanna, like the flags of different nations. After such a salutation, the +celebrated Story-Teller felt almost ashamed to produce so humble an affair as +Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe. +</p> + +<p> +This story was originally more dramatic than as there presented, and afforded +good scope for mimicry and buffoonery, neither of which, to my shame, did I +spare. I never knew the “magic of a name” till I used that of Mr. Higginbotham. +Often as I repeated it, there were louder bursts of merriment than those which +responded to what, in my opinion, were more legitimate strokes of humor. The +success of the piece was incalculably heightened by a stiff cue of horsehair, +which Little Pickle, in the spirit of that mischief-loving character, had +fastened to my collar, where, unknown to me, it kept making the queerest +gestures of its own in correspondence with all mine. The audience, supposing +that some enormous joke was appended to this long tail behind, were ineffably +delighted, and gave way to such a tumult of approbation that, just as the story +closed, the benches broke beneath them and left one whole row of my admirers on +the floor. Even in that predicament they continued their applause. In after +times, when I had grown a bitter moralizer, I took this scene for an example +how much of fame is humbug; how much the meed of what our better nature blushes +at; how much an accident; how much bestowed on mistaken principles; and how +small and poor the remnant. From pit and boxes there was now a universal call +for the Story-Teller. +</p> + +<p> +That celebrated personage came not when they did call to him. As I left the +stage, the landlord, being also the postmaster, had given me a letter with the +postmark of my native village, and directed to my assumed name in the stiff old +handwriting of Parson Thumpcushion. Doubtless he had heard of the rising renown +of the Story-Teller, and conjectured at once that such a nondescript luminary +could be no other than his lost ward. His epistle, though I never read it, +affected me most painfully. I seemed to see the Puritanic figure of my guardian +standing among the fripperies of the theatre and pointing to the +players,—the fantastic and effeminate men, the painted women, the giddy +girl in boy’s clothes, merrier than modest,—pointing to these with solemn +ridicule, and eying me with stern rebuke. His image was a type of the austere +duty, and they of the vanities of life. +</p> + +<p> +I hastened with the letter to my chamber and held it unopened in my hand, while +the applause of my buffoonery yet sounded through the theatre. Another train of +thought came over me. The stern old man appeared again, but now with the +gentleness of sorrow, softening his authority with love as a father might, and +even bending his venerable head, as if to say that my errors had an apology in +his own mistaken discipline. I strode twice across the chamber, then held the +letter in the flame of the candle, and beheld it consume unread. It is fixed in +my mind, and was so at the time, that he had addressed me in a style of +paternal wisdom, and love, and reconciliation which I could not have resisted +had I but risked the trial. The thought still haunts me that then I made my +irrevocable choice between good and evil fate. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, as this occurrence had disturbed my mind and indisposed me to the +present exercise of my profession, I left the town, in spite of a laudatory +critique in the newspaper, and untempted by the liberal offers of the manager. +As we walked onward, following the same road, on two such different errands, +Eliakim groaned in spirit, and labored with tears to convince me of the guilt +and madness of my life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASSAGES FROM A RELINQUISHED WORK ***</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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