No More Learning



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LETTER TO HIS WIFE ON THEIR DAUGHTER'S DEATH
From Plutarch's 'Miscellanies and Essays': Copyrighted. Reprinted by per-
mission of Little, Brown & Co. , publishers
AⓇ
S FOR the messenger you dispatched to tell me of the death
of
my little daughter, it seems he missed his way as he
was going to Athens. But when I came to Tanagra, I
heard of it by my niece. I suppose by this time the funeral is
over. I wish that whatever has been done may create you no
dissatisfaction, as well now as hereafter. But if you have design-
edly let anything alone, depending upon my judgment, thinking
better to determine the point if I were with you, I pray let
it be without ceremony and timorous superstition, which I know
are far from you.
Only, dear wife, let you and me bear our affliction with
patience. I know very well and do comprehend what loss we
have had; but if I should find you grieve beyond measure, this
would trouble me more than the thing itself. For I had my
birth neither from a stock nor a stone; and you know it full
well, I having been assistant to you in the education of so many
children, which we brought up at home under our own care.
This daughter was born after four sons, when you were longing
to bear a daughter; which made me call her by your own name.
Therefore I know she was particularly dear to you. And grief
must have a peculiar pungency in a mind tenderly affectionate
to children, when you call to mind how naturally witty and
innocent she was, void of anger, and not querulous.
She was
naturally mild, and compassionate to a miracle. And her grati-
tude and kindness not only gave us delight, but also manifested
her generous nature; for she would pray her nurse to give suck,
not only to other children, but to her very playthings, as it were
courteously inviting them to her table, and making the best
cheer for them she could.
Now, my dear wife, I see no reason why these and the like
things, which delighted us so much when she was alive, should
upon remembrance of them afflict us when she is dead. But I
also fear lest, while we cease from sorrowing, we should forget
her: as Clymene said-
"I hate the handy horned bow,
And banish youthful pastimes now,"-
-


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-
because she would not be put in mind of her son by the exer-
cises he had been used to. For nature always shuns such things
as are troublesome. But since our little daughter afforded all
our senses the sweetest and most charming pleasure, so ought
we to cherish her memory, which will conduce in many ways —
or rather many fold - more to our joy than
And
our grief.
it is but just that the same arguments which we have ofttimes
used to others should prevail upon ourselves at this so season-
able a time, and that we should not supinely sit down and over-
whelm the joys which we have tasted with a multiplicity of new
griefs.
Moreover, they who were present at the funeral report this
with admiration,- that you neither put on mourning, nor dis-
figured yourself or any of your maids; neither were there any
costly preparations nor magnificent pomp; but all things were
managed with silence and moderation in the presence of our
relatives alone. And it seems not strange to me that you, who
never used richly to dress yourself for the theatre or other pub-
lic solemnities, esteeming such magnificence vain and useless
even in matters of delight, have now practiced frugality on this
sad occasion. For a virtuous woman ought not only to preserve
her purity in riotous feasts, but also to think thus with herself:
that the tempest of the mind in violent grief must be calmed by
patience, which does not encroach on the natural love of parents
towards their children, as many think, but only struggles against
the disorderly and irregular passions of the mind. For we allow
this love of children to discover itself in lamenting, wishing
for, and longing after them when they are dead. But the excess-
ive inclination to grief, which carries people on to unseemly
exclamations and furious behavior, is no less culpable than luxu
rious intemperance. Yet reason seems to plead in its excuse;
because, instead of pleasure, grief and sorrow are ingredients of
the crime. What can be more irrational, I pray, than to check
excessive laughter and joy, and yet to give a free course to riv-
ers of tears and sighs, which flow from the same fountain? or
as some do, quarrel with their wives for using artificial helps
to beauty, and in the mean time suffer them to shave their
heads, wear the mournful black, sit disconsolate, and lie in pain ?
and (which is worst of all) if their wives at any time chastise
their servants or maids immoderately, to interpose and hinder
them, but at the same time suffer them to torment and punish


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11643
themselves most cruelly, in a case which peculiarly requires their
greatest tenderness and humanity?
But between us, dear wife, there never was any occasion
for such contests, nor I think will there ever be. For there is
no philosopher of our acquaintance who is not in love with your
frugality, both in apparel and diet; nor a citizen to whom the
simplicity and plainness of your dress is not conspicuous, both
at religious sacrifices and public shows in the theatre. Formerly
also you discovered on the like occasion a great constancy of
mind, when you lost your eldest son; and again when the lovely
Charon left us. For I remember, when the news was brought
me of my son's death, as I was returning home with some
friends and guests who accompanied me to my house, when they
beheld all things in order and observed a profound silence every-
where, as they afterwards declared to others,-they thought no
such calamity had happened, but that the report was false. So
discreetly had you settled the affairs of the house at that time,
when no small confusion and disorder might have been expected.
And yet you gave this son suck yourself, and endured the lan-
cing of your breast, to prevent the ill effects of a contusion.
These are things worthy of a generous woman, and one that
loves her children.
―――
Whereas we see most other women receive their children in
their hands as playthings, with a feminine mirth and jollity; and
afterwards, if they chance to die, they will drench themselves in
the most vain and excessive sorrow. Not that this is any effect
of their love, for that gentle passion acts regularly and discreetly;
but it rather proceeds from a desire of vainglory, mixed with a
little natural affection, which renders their mourning barbarous,
brutish, and extravagant. Which thing Æsop knew very well,
when he told the story of Jupiter's giving honors to the gods;
for it seems Grief also made her demands, and it was granted
that she should be honored, but only by those who were willing
of their own accord to do it. And indeed, this is the beginning
of sorrow. Everybody first gives her free access; and after she
is once rooted and settled and become familiar, she will not be
forced thence with their best endeavors. Therefore she must be
resisted at her first approach: nor must we surrender the fort to
her by any exterior signs, whether of apparel, or shaving the hair,
or any other such-like symptoms of mournful weakness; which
happening daily, and wounding us by degrees with a kind of


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foolish bashfulness, at length do so enervate the mind, and reduce
her to such straits, that, quite dejected and besieged with grief,
the poor timorous wretch dare not be merry, or see the light, or
eat and drink in company. This inconvenience is accompanied
by a neglect of the body: carelessness of anointing and bathing,
with whatsoever relates to the elegancy of human life. Whereas
on the contrary the soul, when it is disordered, ought to receive
aid from the vigor of a healthful body. For the sharpest edge
of the soul's grief is rebated and slacked when the body is in
tranquillity and ease, like the sea in a calm. But where, from an
ill course of diet, the body becomes dry and hot, so that it can-
not supply the soul with commodious and serene spirits, but only
breathes forth melancholy vapors and exhalations, which perpetu-
ally annoy her with grief and sadness, there it is difficult for a
man (though never so willing and desirous) to recover the tran-
quillity of his mind, after it has been disturbed with so many
evil affections.
But that which is most to be dreaded in this case does not
at all affright me,-to wit, the visits of foolish women, and their
accompanying you in your tears and lamentations; by which they
sharpen your grief, not suffering it either of itself or by the
help of others to fade and vanish away. For I am not ignorant
how great a combat you lately entered, when you assisted the sis-
ter of Theon, and opposed the women who came running in with
horrid cries and lamentations, bringing fuel as it were to her
passion. Assuredly, when men see their neighbor's house on fire,
every one contributes his utmost to quench it; but when they
see the mind inflamed with furious passion, they bring fuel to
nourish and increase the flame. When a man's eye is in pain,
he is not suffered to touch it, though the inflammation provoke
him to it; nor will they that are near him meddle with it. But
he who is galled with grief sits and exposes his distemper to
every one, like waters that all may poach in; and so that which
at first seemed a light itching or trivial smart, by much fret-
ting and provoking becomes a great and almost incurable disease.
But I know very well that you will arm yourself against these
inconveniences.


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11645
THE WIFE OF PYTHES
From the Discourse Concerning the Virtues of Women
in Plutarch's 'Mis-
cellanies and Essays': Copyrighted. Reprinted by permission of Little,
Brown & Co. , publishers.
I'
T IS reported that the wife of Pythes, who lived at the time
of Xerxes, was a wise and courteous woman. Pythes, as it
seems, finding by chance some gold mines, and falling vastly
in love with the riches got out of them, was insatiably and beyond
measure exercised about them: and he brought down likewise the
citizens, all of whom alike he compelled to dig or carry or refine
the gold, doing nothing else; many of them dying in the work,
and all being quite worn out. Their wives laid down their peti-
tion at his gate, addressing themselves to the wife of Pythes.
She bade them all depart and be of good cheer; but those gold-
smiths which she confided most in she required to wait upon her,
and confining them commanded them to make up golden loaves,
all sorts of junkets and summer fruits, all sorts of fish and flesh
meats, in which she knew Pythes was most delighted. All things
being provided, Pythes coming home then (for he happened to go
a long journey) and asking for his supper, his wife set a golden
table before him, having no edible food upon it, but all golden.
Pythes admired the workmanship for its imitation of nature.
When however he had sufficiently fed his eyes, he called in
earnest for something to eat; but his wife, when he asked for
any sort, brought it of gold. Whereupon being provoked, he
cried out, "I am an hungered. " She replied, "Thou hast made
none other provisions for us: every skillful science and art being
laid aside, no man works in husbandry; but neglecting sowing,
planting, and tilling the ground, we delve and search for useless
things, killing ourselves and our subjects. " These things moved
Pythes, but not so as to give over all his works about the mine;
for he now commanded a fifth part of the citizens to that work,
the rest he converted to husbandry and manufactures. But when
Xerxes made an expedition into Greece, Pythes, being most
splendid in his entertainments and presents, requested a gracious
favor of the King,- that since he had many sons, one might be
spared from the camp to remain with him, to cherish his old age.
At which Xerxes in a rage slew this son only which he desired,
and cut him in two pieces, and commanded the army to march
between the two parts of the corpse. The rest he took along


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PLUTARCH
with him, and all of them were slain in the wars. At which
Pythes fell into a despairing condition, so that he fell under
the like suffering with many wicked men and fools. He dreaded
death, but was weary of his life; yea, he was willing not to live,
but could not cast away his life. He had this project. There
was a great mound of earth in the city, and a river running by
it which they called Pythopolites. In that mound he prepared
him a sepulchre, and diverted the stream so as to run just by the
side of the mound, the river lightly washing the sepulchre. These
things being finished, he enters into the sepulchre, committing
the city and all the government thereof to his wife: commanding
her not to come to him, but to send his supper daily laid on a
sloop, till the sloop should pass by the sepulchre with the supper
untouched; and then she should cease to send, as supposing him
dead. He verily passed in this manner the rest of his life; but
his wife took admirable care of the government, and brought in
a reformation of all things amiss among the people.
THE TEACHING OF VIRTUE
From the Discourse That Virtue may be Taught,' in Plutarch's Miscellanies
and Essays': Copyrighted. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown &
Co. , publishers.
MⓇ
EN deliberate and dispute variously concerning virtue,
whether prudence and justice and the right ordering of
one's life can be taught. Moreover, we marvel that the
works of orators, shipmasters, musicians, carpenters, and husband-
men are infinite in number, while good men are only a name,
and are talked of like centaurs, giants, and the Cyclops: and that
as for any virtuous action that is sincere and unblamable, and
manners that are without any touch and mixture of bad passions
and affections, they are not to be found; but if nature of its
own accord should produce anything good and excellent, so many
things of a foreign nature mix with it (just as wild and impure
productions with generous fruit) that the good is scarce discern-
ible. Men learn to sing, dance, and read, and to be skillful in
husbandry and good horsemanship; they learn how to put on
their shoes and their garments; they have those that teach them


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11647
how to fill wine, and to dress and cook their meat; and none of
these things can be done as they ought, unless they be instructed.
how to do them. And will ye say, O foolish men! that the skill
of ordering one's life well (for the sake of which are all the rest)
is not to be taught, but to come of its own accord, without
reason and without art?
Why do we, by asserting that virtue is not to be taught. make
it a thing that does not at all exist? For if by its being learned
it is produced, he that hinders its being learned destroys it. And
now, as Plato says, we never heard that because of a blunder in
metre in a lyric song, therefore one brother made war against
another, nor that it put friends at variance, nor that cities here-
upon were at such enmity that they did to one another and suf-
fered one from another the extremest injuries. Nor can any one
tell us of a sedition raised in a city about the right accenting or
pronouncing of a word,- as whether we are to say Texivaç or
Téλxias,— nor that a difference arose in a family betwixt man and
wife about the woof and the warp in cloth. Yet none will go
about to weave in a loom or to handle a book or a harp, unless
he has first been taught, though no great harm would follow if
he did, but only the fear of making himself ridiculous (for as
Heraclitus says, it is a piece of discretion to conceal one's ignor-
ance); and yet a man without instruction presumes himself able
to order a family, a wife, or a commonwealth, and to govern
very well. Diogenes, seeing a youth devouring his victuals too
greedily, gave his tutor a box on the ear, and that deservedly, as
judging it the fault of him that had not taught, not of him that
had not learned, better manners. And what is it necessary to
begin from a boy to learn how to eat and drink handsomely in
company, as Aristophanes expresses it,
"Not to devour their meat in haste, nor giggle,
Nor awkwardly their feet across to wriggle,
-
and yet are men fit to enter into the fellowship of a family, city,
married estate, private conversation, or public office, and to man-
age it without blame, without any previous instruction concern-
ing good behavior in conversation?
When one asked Aristippus this question, What, are you
everywhere? he laughed and said, I throw away the fare of the
waterman if I am everywhere. And why canst not thou also
answer, that the salary given to tutors is thrown away and lost


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if none are the better for their discipline and instruction? But
as nurses shape and form the body of a child with their hands,
so these masters, when the nurses have done with them, first
receive them into their charge, in order to the forming of their
manners and directing their steps into the first tracks of virtue.
THE NEED OF GOOD SCHOOLMASTERS
From A Discourse on the Training of Children,' in Plutarch's 'Miscellanies
and Essays: Copyrighted. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown
& Co. , publishers.
W*
E ARE to look after such masters for our children as are
blameless in their lives, not justly reprovable for their
manners, and of the best experience in teaching. For
the very spring and root of honesty and virtue lies in the felicity
of lighting on good education. And as husbandmen are wont
to set forks to prop up feeble plants, so do honest schoolmas-
ters prop up youth by careful instructions and admonitions, that
they may duly bring forth the buds of good manners. But there
are certain fathers nowadays who deserve that men should spit
on them in contempt, who, before making any proof of those
to whom they design to commit the teaching of their children,
intrust them—either through unacquaintance, or as it sometimes
falls out, through bad judgment-to men of no good reputation,
or it may be such as are branded with infamy. They are not
altogether so ridiculous, if they offend herein through bad judg-
ment; but it is a thing most extremely absurd, when, as often-
times it happens, though they know and are told beforehand
by those who understand better than themselves, both of the in-
capacity and rascality of certain schoolmasters, they nevertheless
commit the charge of their children to them, sometimes over-
come by their fair and flattering speeches, and sometimes pre-
vailed on to gratify friends who entreat them. This is an error
of like nature with that of the sick man who to please his
friends, forbears to send for the physician that might save his
life by his skill, and employs a mountebank that quickly dis-
patcheth him out of the world; or of him who refuses a skillful
shipmaster, and then at his friend's entreaty commits the care of
his vessel to one that is therein much his inferior. In the name
of Jupiter and all the gods, tell me how can that man deserve


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11649
the name of a father, who is more concerned to gratify others
in their requests than to have his children well educated? Or is
not that rather fitly applicable to this case which Socrates, that
ancient philosopher, was wont to say, that if he could get up to
the highest place in the city, he would lift up his voice and make
this proclamation thence: "What mean you, fellow-citizens, that
you thus turn every stone to scrape wealth together, and take
so little care of your children, to whom one day you must relin-
quish it all? "-to which I would add this, that such parents do
like him that is solicitous about his shoe, but neglects the foot
that is to wear it. And yet many fathers there are, who care so
much for their money and so little for their children, that lest it
should cost them more than they are willing to spare to hire a
good schoolmaster for them, they rather choose such persons to
instruct their children as are of no worth; thereby beating down
the market, that they may purchase ignorance cheap. It was
therefore a witty and handsome jeer which Aristippus bestowed
on a stupid father, who asked him what he would take to teach
his child. He answered, a thousand drachms. Whereupon the
other cried out: O Hercules, what a price you ask! for I can buy
a slave at that rate. Do so, then, said the philosopher, and thou
shalt have two slaves instead of one,- thy son for one, and him
thou buyest for another.
—
MOTHERS AND NURSES
From A Discourse on the Training of Children,' in Plutarch's Miscellanies
and Essays': Copyrighted. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown
& Co. , publishers.
TH
HE next thing that falls under our consideration is the nurs-
ing of children, which in my judgment the mothers should
do themselves, giving their own breasts to those they have
borne. For this office will certainly be performed with more
tenderness and carefulness by natural mothers; who will love
their children intimately, as the saying is, from their tender
nails. Whereas both wet and dry nurses who are hired, love
only for their pay, and are affected to their work as ordinarily
those that are substituted and deputed in the place of others
Yea, even Nature seems to have assigned the suckling and
nursing of the issue to those that bear them; for which cause she
XX-729


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PLUTARCH
hath bestowed upon every living creature that brings forth young,
milk to nourish them withal. And in conformity thereto, Provi-
dence hath also wisely ordered that women should have two
breasts, that so, if any of them should happen to bear twins, they
might have two several springs of nourishment ready for them.
Though if they had not that furniture, mothers would still be
more kind and loving to their own children. And that not with-
out reason; for constant feeding together is a great means to
heighten the affection mutually betwixt any persons. Yea, even
beasts, when they are separated from those that have grazed
with them, do in their way show a longing for the absent.
Wherefore, as I have said, mothers themselves should strive to
the
utmost to nurse their own children. But if they find it
impossible to do it themselves, either because of bodily weakness
(and such a case may fall out), or because they are apt to be
quickly with child again, then are they to choose the honestest
nurses they can get, and not to take whomsoever they have
offered them. And the first thing to be looked after in this
choice is, that the nurses be bred after the Greek fashion. For
as it is needful that the members of children be shaped aright
as soon as they are born, that they may not afterwards prove
crooked and distorted, so it is no less expedient that their man-
ners be well fashioned from the very beginning. For childhood
is a tender thing, and easily wrought into any shape. Yea, and
the very souls of children readily receive the impressions of
those things that are dropped into them while they are yet but
soft; but when they grow older they will, as all hard things are,
be more difficult to be wrought upon And as soft wax is apt
to take the stamp of the seal, so are the minds of children to
receive the instructions imprinted on them at that age.
All the above citations from the 'Morals are from a translation edited by
W. W. Goodwin


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11651
EDGAR ALLAN POE
(1809-1849)
BY FREDERIC W. H. MYERS
E
DGAR ALLAN POE has on two grounds a saving claim to the
inclusion of specimens of his work in an American collec-
tion of The World's Best Literature. ' His first claim is
historical; arising from his position among the earliest distinguished
writers of the great American branch of English-speaking folk.
"Securus judicat orbis terrarum »* may be said now by the West-
ern as well as by the Eastern world; and a man whom the United
States count among their intellectual ancestry could have no better
vantage-ground for enduring fame.
Poe's second claim to representation in this world-famous group
must rest mainly, I think, upon a narrow ground; namely, the strange
beauty of a few lines of his verse. How strong that claim will be
with true verse-lovers I must presently try to show. First, how-
ever, a few words must be said on his prose writings. Poe's histor-
ical position has been, perhaps inevitably, regarded as a reason for
reprinting many volumes of his prose; but it is only on some few
tales that his admirers will wish to linger. He wrote often actually
for bread; often to gratify some mere personal feeling; sometimes
(as in 'Eureka') with a kind of schoolboy exultation over imagi-
nary discoveries, which adds a pang to our regret that so open and
eager a spirit should have missed its proper training. With some of
the tales of course the case is very different. A good many of them,
indeed, are too crude, or too repulsive, or too rhetorical for our mod-
ern taste. But the best are veritable masterpieces; and have been,
if not actually the prototypes, at least the most ingenious and effect-
ive models, of a whole genre of literature which has since sprung
up in rich variety. Growing science has afforded a wider basis for
these strange fantasies; and modern literary art has invested with
fresh realism many a wild impossible story. But Poe's best tales
show a certain intensity which perhaps no successor has reached; not
only in his conception of the play of weird passions in weird environ-
ments, but in a still darker mood of mind which must keep its grim
*«The world's judgment is beyond appeal. »


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11652
EDGAR ALLAN POE
attractiveness so long as the mystery of the Universe shall press upon
the lives of men.
Fear was the primitive temper of the human race. It lies deep in
us still; and in some minds of high development the restless dread,
the shuddering superstition, of the savage have been sublimed into
a new kind of cosmic terror. "Je ne vois qu'Infini par toutes les
fenêtres,» said Baudelaire; and the Infinite which he felt encompass-
ing him was nothing else than hell. Poe, whom Baudelaire admired
and translated, was a man born like Baudelaire to feel this terror;
born to hear-
―
"Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things moving toward a day of doom »;
born to behold all sweet and sacred emotion curdling, as it were, on
the temple floor into supernatural horror;
«latices nigrescere sacros,
Fusaque in obscenum se vertere vina cruorem. » †
To transmit this thrill without undue repulsion needs more of
art than either Poe or Baudelaire could often give. Poe had not
Baudelaire's cruel and isolating lust, but he dwelt even more than
Baudelaire upon the merely loathsome; upon aspects of physical de-
cay. "Soft may the worms about her creep! " is his requiem over
a maiden motionless in death: "this cheek where the worm never
dies" is his metaphor for the mourner's sorrow. Such phrases do not
justify the claim sometimes made for Poe of goût exquis, of infallible
artistic instinct. Yet this cosmic terror in the background of his
thought gives to some of his prose pages a constraining power; and
in some rare verses it is so fused with beauty that it enters the
heart with a poignancy that is delight as well as pain.
The charm of poetry can be created for us by but few men; but
Poe in a few moments was one of these few. His poems, indeed,
have been very variously judged; and their merit is of a virtuoso
type which needs special defense from those who keenly feel it.
Few verse-writers, we must at once admit, have been more barren
than Poe of any serious « message"; more unequal to any "criticism
of life"; narrower in range of thought, experience, emotion. Few
verse-writers whom we can count as poets have left so little verse,
and of that little so large a proportion which is indefensibly bad.
On some dozen short pieces alone can Poe's warmest admirers rest
his poetic repute. And how terribly open to criticism some of even
"I see only the Infinite through every window. ”
"To behold the sacral waters turning black, and the outpoured wine trans-
formed into foul blood. "


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EDGAR ALLAN POE
11653
those pieces are! To analyze Ulalume,' for instance, would be like
breaking a death's-head moth on the wheel. But nevertheless, a
dozen solid British poets of the Southey type would to my mind be
well bartered for those few lines of Poe's which after the sternest
sifting must needs remain.
To justify this preference I must appeal, as I have said, to a kind
of virtuoso standard, which is only too apt to degenerate into mere
pose and affectation. But in truth, besides and apart from - if you
will, below that nobler view of poets as prophets, message-bearers,
voices of the race, there does exist a very real aspect of all verse-
makers as a vast band of persons playing a game something like
'Patience in excelsis: a game in which words are dealt round as
counters, and you have to arrange your counters in such a pattern
that rivals and spectators alike shall vote you a prize; one prize only
being awarded for about ten thousand competitors in the game. Poe
has won a prize with a few small patterns which no one in his gen-
eration could exactly beat.
--
"Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;·
This all this
was in the olden
Time long ago. "
K
-
---
These lines contain no particular idea; and the last two of
them consist literally of a story-teller's formula as old as folk-lore.
But who before Poe made this egg stand on its end? What inward
impulse struck the strong note of Banners, and marshaled those long
vowels in deepening choir, and interjected the intensifying pause-
all this, and led on through air to the melancholy olden, and hung
in the void of an unknown eternity the diapason of Time long ago?
Or, to take a simple test, can you quote, say, from Byron one single
stanza of like haunting quality; — can you quote many such stanzas
from whomsoever you will?
Such verbal criticism as this should not, as I have said, be pushed
too far. I will conclude with the most definite praise which I can
find for Poe; and this same poem, The Haunted Palace,' suggests
the theme.
―――――
The most appealing verses of many poets have been inspired by
their own life's regret or despair. Burns is at his best in his 'Epi-
taph, Cowper in his Castaway,' Shelley in his Stanzas Written in
Dejection,' Keats in his 'Drear-Nighted December,' Mrs. Browning
in The Great God Pan. ' In The Haunted Palace' Poe allegorizes
the same theme. We cannot claim for Poe the gravity of Cowper,
nor the manliness of Burns, nor the refinement of Mrs. Browning,
nor the ethereality of Shelley, nor the lovableness of Keats. Our


## p. 11654 (#274) ##########################################

11654
EDGAR ALLAN POE
sympathy, our sense of kinship, go forth to one of these other poets
rather than to him. Yet to me at least none of these poems comes
home so poignantly as Poe's; none quivers with such a sense of awful
issues, of wild irreparable ill.
*
'Ek Juкpāν óhíуiora. Little indeed of Poe's small poetic output can
stand the test of time. Call him, if you will, the least of the im-
mortals: but let us trust that immortal he shall be; that the ever-
gathering wind which bears down to us odors of the Past shall carry
always a trace of the bitter fragrance crushed out from this despairing
soul.
Экопут
[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. - Both Poe's parents were actors, and he was
born while the itinerant company was playing in Boston, January
19th, 1809. Within three years both parents died, and the boy was
adopted by John Allan, a merchant of Richmond, Virginia. The
family lived in England from 1815 to 1820. In 1827 young Poe, after
a single brilliant but disastrous year at the University of Virginia,
made a still prompter failure in Mr. Allan's counting-room, deserted
his too indulgent foster-parents, printed a volume of verse in Boston,
-and enlisted there as a private soldier! Rising from the ranks, he
in 1830 secured a cadetship at West Point. "Riding for a fall," he
was dismissed for failure in his studies, March 1831.
From this time Poe led a roving and precarious life, as author and
editor, in Baltimore, Richmond, and finally for the most part in New
York. His intemperate habits embittered his personal quarrels and
hastened his business failures. He married his cousin Virginia Clemm
in 1835 or 1836. Her prolonged illness, and her death in January
1847, gave the coup de grâce to Poe's shattered constitution. He died
forlorn in a Baltimore hospital, October 7th, 1849.
The best biography of Poe is that by Prof. George E. Woodberry
in the 'American Men of Letters' Series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ,
Boston); and the authoritative and complete edition of his works is
that in ten volumes, edited by Mr. E. C. Stedman and Prof. Wood-
berry, and published by Stone & Kimball, New York. ]
* Very little even of the little.


## p. 11655 (#275) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11655
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM
WⓇ
E had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For
some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted
to speak.
"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided
you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but about
three years past there happened to me an event such as never
happened before to mortal man,- or at least such as no man
ever survived to tell of,- and the six hours of deadly terror
which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You
suppose me a very old man, but I am not. It took less than a
single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to
weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves so that I trem-
ble at the least exertion and am frightened at a shadow. Do
you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting
giddy? »
The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown
himself to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over
it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his
elbow on its extreme and slippery edge-this "little cliff" arose,
a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fif-
teen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us.
Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of
its brink. In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous posi-
tion of my companion that I fell at full length upon the ground,
clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance up-
ward at the sky-while I struggled in vain to divest myself
of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in
danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could
reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into
the distance.
"You must get over these fancies," said the guide; "for I have
brought you here that you might have the best possible view of
the scene of that event I mentioned, and to tell you the whole
story with the spot just under your eye.
"We are now," he continued in that particularizing manner
which distinguished him,-"we are now close upon the Nor-
wegian coast-in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude-in the
great province of Nordland-and in the dreary district of Lofo-
den. The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the


## p. 11656 (#276) ##########################################

11656
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher-hold on to the
grass if you feel giddy-so- and look out, beyond the belt of
vapor beneath us, into the sea. "
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean whose
waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the
Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum.
rama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can con-
ceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there
lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horribly
black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the
more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against
it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever.
Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed,
and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was
visible a small bleak-looking island; or more properly, its posi-
tion was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it
was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land arose another
of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at
various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean in the space between the more
distant island and the shore had something very unusual about
it. Although at the time so strong a gale was blowing landward
that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed
trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still
there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short,
quick, angry cross-dashing of water in every direction-as well
in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little
except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.
"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called
by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That
a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hot-
holm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off-between
Moskoe and Vurrgh-are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and
Stockholm. These are the true names of the places; but why
it has been thought necessary to name them at all is more than
either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you
see any change in the water? "
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseg-
gen,- to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden,
so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst
upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke I became


## p. 11657 (#277) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11657
aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning
of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the
same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping
character of the ocean beneath us was rapidly changing into
a current which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this
current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added
to its speed-to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the
whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury,
but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar
held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and
scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into
frenzied convulsion: heaving, boiling, hissing; gyrating in gigan-
tic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on
to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere
assumes, except in precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more there came over the scene another
radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more
smooth, and the whirlpools one by one disappeared, while pro-
digious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been
seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great
distance and entering into combination, took unto themselves the
gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the
germ of another more vast. Suddenly-very suddenly-this as-
sumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than
a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by
a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped
into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as
the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black
wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-
five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying
and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appall-
ing voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty
cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.
The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked.
I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in
an excess of nervous agitation.
"This," said I at length to the old man,- "this can be noth-
ing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström. "
"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians
call it the Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the mid-
way. "
-


## p. 11658 (#278) ##########################################

11658
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means pre-
pared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is per-
haps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest
conception either of the magnificence or of the horror of the
scene, or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel which con-
founds the beholder. I am not sure from what point of view the
writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could
neither have been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a
storm.
There are some passages of his description, nevertheless,
which may be quoted for their details, although their effect is
exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.
"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the
water is between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other
side, toward Ver [Vurrgh], this depth decreases so as not to afford
a convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on
the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it
is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and
Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous
ebb to the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most dread-
ful cataracts,-the noise being heard several leagues off: and the
vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship
comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried
down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks;
and when the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown
up again.
But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the
turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a
quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. When the
stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it
is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts,
and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it
before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently
that whales come too near the stream and are overpowered by
its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howlings
and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage them-
selves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Mos-
koe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared
terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and
pine-trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken
and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This
plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which
they are whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the


## p. 11659 (#279) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11659
flux and reflux of the sea,- it being constantly high and low
water every six hours. In the year 1645, early in the morning
of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such noise and impetu-
osity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to the
ground. "
In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this
could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of
the vortex. The "forty fathoms " must have reference only to
portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or
Lofoden. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-ström must be
unmeasurably greater.
Looking down from this pinnacle
upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at
the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a
matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the
bears; for it appeared to me a self-evident thing that the largest
ships of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the
hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.
The attempts to account for the phenomenon some of which,
I remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal - now
wore a very different and unsatisfactory aspect.
The idea gen-
erally received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices
among the Ferroe Islands, "have no other cause than the collis-
ion of waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge
of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it precipi-
tates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the flood rises, the
deeper must the fall be; and the natural result of all is a whirl-
pool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently
known by lesser experiments. " These are the words of the
'Encyclopædia Britannica. ' Kircher and others imagine that in
the centre of the channel of the Maelstrom is an abyss pene-
trating the globe, and issuing in some very remote part, the
Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance.
This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed,
my imagination most readily assented; and mentioning it to the
guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that although it
was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the
Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former
notion, he confessed his inability to comprehend it: and here I
agreed with him; for however conclusive on paper, it becomes
altogether unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of
the abyss.
――
1


## p. 11660 (#280) ##########################################

11660
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old
man; "and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its
lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story
that will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-
ström. "
I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.
"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged
smack of about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in
the habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly
to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at
proper opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it;
but among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were
the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the
islands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower
down to the southward. There fish can be got at all hours,
without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred.
The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only
yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that
we often got in a single day what the more timid of the craft
could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a
matter of desperate speculation: the risk of life standing instead.
of labor, and courage answering for capital.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the
coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take
advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main
channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop
down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen,
where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used
to remain until nearly time for slack water again, when we
weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expe-
dition without a steady side wind for going and coming, — one
that we felt sure would not fail us before our return; and we
seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice, during
six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account
of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here;
and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week,
starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after
our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought
of. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea
in spite of everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and
round so violently, that at length we fouled our anchor and
dragged it), if it had not been that we drifted into one of the


## p. 11661 (#281) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11661
innumerable cross-currents,- here to-day and gone to-morrow,-
which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where by good luck we
brought up.
"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered 'on the ground,'—it is a bad spot to be in, even in
good weather: but we made shift always to run the gantlet of
the Moskoe-ström itself without accident; although at times my
heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute
or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not
as strong as we thought it at starting; and then we made rather
less way than we could wish, while the current rendered the
smack unmanageable. My eldest brother had a son eighteen
years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. These would
have been of great assistance in such times, in using the sweeps
as well as afterward in fishing; but somehow, although we ran
the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones
get into the danger-for after all said and done, it was a hor-
rible danger, and that is the truth.
"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am
going to tell you occurred. It was on the 10th of July, 18—; a
day which the people of this part of the world will never forget,
for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that
ever came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and
indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady
breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone brightly, so that
the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to
follow.
"The three of us. my two brothers and myself - had crossed
over to the islands about two o'clock P. M. , and soon nearly
loaded the smack with fine fish; which, we all remarked, were
more plenty that day than we had ever known them.
It was
just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started for home,
so as to make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we
knew would be at eight.
"We set out with a fresh wind at our starboard quarter, and
for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of
danger; for indeed, we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend
it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over
Helseggen. This was most unusual; something that had never
happened to us: and I began to feel a little uneasy, without
exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could.


## p. 11662 (#282) ##########################################

11662
EDGAR ALLAN POE
make no headway at all for the eddies; and I was upon the point
of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern,
we saw the whole horizon covered with a singular copper-colored
cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.
"In the mean time the breeze that had headed us off fell
away; and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direc-
tion. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to
give us time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm
was upon us; in less than two the sky was entirely overcast; and
what with this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark
that we could not see each other in the smack.
"Such a hurricane as then blew, it is folly to attempt to de-
scribe. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything
like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly
took us; but at the first puff, both our masts went by the board
as if they had been sawed off — the mainmast taking with it my
youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.
"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thin that ever sat
upon water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small
hatch near the bow; and this hatch it had always been our cus-
tom to batten down when about to cross the Ström, by way of
precaution against chopping seas. But for this circumstance we
should have foundered at once; for we lay entirely buried for
some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I
cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining.
my part, as so as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself
flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the
bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of
the foremast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this,
which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done;
for I was too much flurried to think.
"For some moments we were completely deluged, I say; and
all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I
could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still
keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Pres-
ently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in
coming out of the water, and thus rid herself in some measure
of the seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor
that had come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see
what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It
was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had
-


## p. 11663 (#283) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11663
made sure that he was overboard; but the next moment all this
joy was turned into horror,- for he put his mouth close to my
ear, and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-ström!
"No one will ever know what my feelings were at that
moment. I shook from head to foot as if I had the most violent
fit of the ague.
I knew what he meant by that one word well
enough I knew what he wished to make me understand. With
the wind that now drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of
the Ström, and nothing could save us!
་
"You perceive that in crossing the Ström channel, we always
went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest
weather, and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack;
but now we were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such
a hurricane as this! To be sure,' I thought, we shall get
there just about the slack,- there is some little hope in that;'
but in the moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as
to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed,
had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.
"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself,
or perhaps we did not feel it much as we scudded before it;
but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down
by the wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute
mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heav-
ens. Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch; but
nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of
clear sky, as clear as I ever saw, and of a deep bright blue,—
and through it there blazed forth the full moon with a lustre
that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything
about us with the greatest distinctness- but O God, what a scene
it was to light up!
"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother;
but in some manner which I could not understand, the din had
so increased that I could not make him hear a single word,
although I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Pres-
ently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held up
one of his fingers, as if to say, 'Listen! '
"At first I could not make out what he meant; but soon a
hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its
fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight,
and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean.
It had run down at seven o'clock! We were behind the time of
the slack, and the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!
―


## p. 11664 (#284) ##########################################

11664
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep
laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem
always to slip from beneath her which appears very strange to
a landsman; and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase.
-
"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but
presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the
counter, and bore us with it as it rose
up — up — as if into
the sky.