No More Learning

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


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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.


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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


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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


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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. "
-


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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


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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


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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


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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.


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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. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so
high. And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a
plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from
some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I
had thrown a quick glance around; and that one glance was all-
sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-
ström whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead; but
no more like the every-day Moskoe-ström, than the whirl as you
now see it is like a mill-race. If I had not known where we
were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognized
the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in
horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.
-
"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward
until we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in
foam. The boat made a sharp half-turn to larboard, and then
shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same
moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned
in a kind of shrill shriek; such a sound as you might imagine
given out by the water pipes of many thousand steam-vessels,
letting off their steam all together. We were now in the belt of
surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course,
that another moment would plunge us into the abyss — down
which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing
velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not
seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air bubble
upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the
whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left.
It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.
"It may appear strange,- but now, when we were in the
very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were
only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no
more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned
me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves.
"It may look like boasting, but what I tell you is truth: I
began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a


## p. 11665 (#285) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11665
manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful
a manifestation of God's power. I do believe that I blushed with
shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I
became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself.
I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacri-
fice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I
should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about
the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fan-
cies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity—and I have
often thought since that the revolutions of the boat around the
pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.
"There was another circumstance which tended to restore
my self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which
could not reach us in our present situation for as you saw
yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general
bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high,
black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a
heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occas-
ioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and
strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection.
But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances;
just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty in-
dulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.
"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible
to say.
We careered round and round for perhaps an hour,
flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into
the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its hor-
rible inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-
bolt. My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty
water cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of
the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been
swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we approached
the brink of the pit, he let go his hold upon thi and made for
the ring, from which in the agony of his terror he endeavored
to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both
a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him
attempt this act, although I knew he was a madman when he did
it—a raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, how-
ever, to contest the point with him. I knew it could make no
difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have
―――――
XX-730


## p. 11666 (#286) ##########################################

11666
EDGAR ALLAN POE
the bolt, and went astern to the cask. This there was no great
difficulty in doing; for the smack flew round steadily enough,
and upon an even keel-only swaying to and fro with the im-
mense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured
myself in my new position when we gave a wild lurch to star-
board and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried
prayer to God, and thought all was over.
"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinct-
ively tightened my hold upon the barrel and closed my eyes.
For some seconds I dared not open them; while I expected
instant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my
death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment
elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and
the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before
while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay
more along. I took courage, and looked once again upon the
scene.
"Never shall I forget the sensation of awe, horror, and admi-
ration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be
hanging, as if by magic, midway down upon the interior sur-
face of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and
whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony
but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around,
and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth as the
rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds
which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden
glory along the black walls and far away down into the inmost.
recesses of the abyss.
"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accu-
rately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I
beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell
instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain
an unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung
on the inclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an
even keel,- that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with
that of the water; but this latter sloped at an angle of more
than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our
beam ends. I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had
scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in
this situation than if we had been upon a dead level; and this,
I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.


## p. 11667 (#287) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11667
"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of
the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly,
on account of a thick mist in which everything there was envel-
oped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that
narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmans say is the only
pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was
no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the
funnel, as they all met together at the bottom; but the yell that
went up to the heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt
to describe.
"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam
above, had carried us to a great distance down the slope; but
our further descent was by no means proportionate. Round and
round we swept; not with any uniform movement, but in dizzying
swings and jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred
yards, sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our
progress downward, at each revolution, was slow but very per-
ceptible.
"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on
which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the
only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below
us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building
timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as
pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels, and staves. I
have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken.
the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me
as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began
to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that
floated in our company. I must have been delirious, for I even
sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of
their several descents toward the foam below. This fir-tree,' I
found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly be the next
thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears;' and then I
was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant
ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after mak-
ing several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all,—
this fact, the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a
train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my
heart beat heavily once more.
"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn
of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory,


## p. 11668 (#288) ##########################################

11668
EDGAR ALLAN POE
and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great
variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden,
having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-
ström. By far the greater number of the articles were shattered
in the most extraordinary way, so chafed and roughened as to
have the appearance of being stuck full of splinters; but then I
distinctly recollected that there were some of them which were
not disfigured at all. Now, I could not account for this difference
except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only
ones which had been completely absorbed; that the others had
entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or from some
reason had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not
reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came,-or of the
ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either
instance, that they might be thus whirled up again to the level
of the ocean without undergoing the fate of those which had
been drawn in more early or absorbed more rapidly. I made
also three important observations. The first was, that as a
general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their
descent; the second, that between two masses of equal extent,
the one spherical and the other of any other shape, the superiority
in speed of descent was with the sphere; the third, that between
two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of
any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly.
Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject
with an old schoolmaster of the district; and it was from him
that I learned the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere. '
He explained to me-although I have forgotten the explanation
-how what I observed was in fact the natural consequence of
the forms of the floating fragments; and showed me how it
happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more
resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty,
than an equally bulky body of any form whatever.
"There was one startling circumstance which went a great
way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious
to turn them to account: and this was, that at every revolution
we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast
of the vessel; while many of those things which had been on
our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of
the whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have
moved but little from their original station.


## p. 11669 (#289) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11669
"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it
loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the
water. I attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to
the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in
my power to make him understand what I was about to do.
I thought at length that he comprehended my design; but
whether this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly,
and refused to move from his station by the ringbolt. It was
impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted of no delay:
and so with a bitter struggle I resigned him to his fate, fastened
myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to
the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea, without
another moment's hesitation.
"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As
it is myself who now tell you this tale, as you see that I did
escape, and as you are already in possession of the mode in
which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate
all that I have further to say, I will bring my story quickly to
conclusion. It might have been an hour or thereabout after my
quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance
beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid suc-
cession, and bearing my loved brother with it, plunged head-
long, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The
barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than
half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at
which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in
the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the
vast funnel became momently less and less steep.
The gyra-
tions of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By de-
grees the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of
the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds
had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in
the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in
full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where
the pool of the Moskoe-ström had been. It was the hour of the
slack; but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the
effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel
of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast
―――――
into the grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up,-
exhausted from fatigue, and (now that the danger was removed)
1
1
I


## p. 11670 (#290) ##########################################

11670
EDGAR ALLAN POE
speechless from the memory of its horror. Those who drew me
on board were my old mates and daily companions; but they
knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from
the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day
before, was as white as you see it now. They say too that the
whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told them
my story; they did not believe it. I now tell it to you; and I
can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the
merry fishermen of Lofoden. "
――
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Son cœur est un luth suspendu ;
Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.
- DE BÉRANGER.
D
URING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively
low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horse-
back, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length
found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view
of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was,
but with the first glimpse of the building a sense of insufferable
gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling
was unrelieved by any of that half pleasurable, because poetic,
sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the
scene before me- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant
eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white
trunks of decayed trees-with an utter depression of soul, which
I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
after-dream of the reveler upon opium-the bitter lapse into
every-day life-the hideous dropping of the veil. There was
an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
torture into aught of the sublime. What was it, I paused to
think, what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation
of the House of Usher?
It was
a mystery all insoluble; nor
could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me


## p. 11671 (#291) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11671
as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
conclusion, that while beyond doubt there are combinations of
very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affect-
ing us, still the analysis of this power lies among considera-
tions beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere
different arrangement of the particulars of the scene,- of the
details of the picture,- would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps
to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression; and acting
upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of
a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwell-
ing, and gazed down- but with a shudder more thrilling than
before upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray
sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like
windows.
-
-
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many
years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had
lately reached me in a distant part of the country-a letter from
him which in its wildly importunate nature had admitted of no
other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous
agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness; of a mental
disorder which oppressed him; and of an earnest desire to see
me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a
view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alle-
viation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and
much more, was said,-it was the apparent heart that went with
his request, which allowed me
no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very sin-
gular summons.
――――――――
Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet
I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
sensibility of temperament; displaying itself through long ages in
many works of exalted art, and manifested of late in repeated
deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a pas-
sionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to
the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science.
I had learned too the very remarkable fact that the stem of the
Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth at no period


## p. 11672 (#292) ##########################################

11672
EDGAR ALLAN POE
any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay
in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling
and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I
considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping
of the character of the premises with the accredited character of
the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence
which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exer-
cised upon the other, it was this deficiency perhaps of collat-
eral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire
to son of the patrimony with the name, which had at length so
identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in
the quaint and equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher, "-
an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peas-
antry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish ex-
periment that of looking down within the tarn-had been to
deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt
that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition —
for why should I not so term it? -served mainly to accelerate
the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical
law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might
have been for this reason only, that when I again uplifted my
eyes to the house itself from its image in the pool, there grew
in my mind a strange fancy; a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I
but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really
to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung
an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicin-
ity; an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven,
but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray
wall, and the silent tarn; a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, slug-
gish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream,
I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi over-
spread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work
from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary
dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual
-


## p. 11673 (#293) ##########################################

EDGAR ALLAN POE
11673
stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the spe-
cious totality of old woodwork which had rotted for long years
in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of
the external air. . Beyond this indication of extensive decay, how-
ever, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the
eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely per-
ceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building
in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until
it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the
house. A ervant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the
Gothic archway of the hall. A valet of stealthy step thence con-
ducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages.
in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I en-
countered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten
the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While
the objects around me- while the carvings of the ceilings, the
sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors,
and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I
strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had
been accustomed from my infancy,- while I hesitated not to
acknowledge how familiar was all this, I still wondered to find
how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were
stirring up. On one of the staircases I met the physician of the
family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression
of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation
and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered
me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty.
The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessi-
ble from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their
way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently
distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however,
struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfort-
less, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments.
lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene.
I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern,
deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.


## p. 11674 (#294) ##########################################

11674
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had
been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious
warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
cordiality, of the constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the
world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of
his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while
he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity,
half of awe.