15 Those found were at least of as good qual- Think, too, how great must have been that strength which could have thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons 5 was found barely sufficient to drag it down! Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most marvelous. On the hearth were thick tresses very 10 thick tresses of gray human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp: sure token of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Étienne, have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument; and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instrument was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped thembecause, by the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed against the possibility of the windows. having ever been opened at all. 40 Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your attention that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious 45 as this let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of mur- 50 der as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will admit that there was something excessively outré - something altogether 55 irreconcilable with our common notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the most depraved of men. If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all distinct or intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What impression have I made upon your fancy?" I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. A madman,' I said, has done this deed- some raving - maniac, escaped from a neighboring Maison de Santé.' In some respects,' he replied, 'your idea is not irrelevant. But the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, 10 the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it.' Dupin!' I said, completely unnerved; this hair is most unusual this is no human hair.' 5 15 'I have not asserted that it is,' said he; but, before we decide this point, I 20 wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here traced upon this paper. It is a fac-simile drawing of what has been described in one portion of the testimony as "dark bruises, and deep indentations of 25 finger nails," upon the throat of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and in another (by Messrs. Dumas and Étienne), as a "series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers." 30 You will perceive,' continued my friend, spreading out the paper upon the table before us, that this drawing gives the idea of a firm and fixed hold. There is no slipping apparent. Each finger has 35 retained possibly until the death of the victim the fearful grasp by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you see o them.' I made the attempt in vain. 'We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial,' he said. The paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the 45 human throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the experiment again.' I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before. This,' I said, 'is the mark of no human hand.' fulvous ourang-outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once. anima. Graham's Magazine, 1841. ELEONORA Sub conservatione formæ specificæ salva I am come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence - whether much that is glorious-whether all that is profound does not spring from disease of thought from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have. been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable,' and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, 'aggressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in co esset exploraturi.' We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence, the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life; and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the second 50 great era of my being. Therefore what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe: and to what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may seem due; or doubt it altogether; or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Edipus. Read now,' replied Dupin, 'this pas- 55 sage from Cuvier.' It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the large She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came upon that vale, for it lay far away up among a range of giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its sweet- 10 est recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; and to reach our happy home there was need of putting back with force the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death the glo- 15 ries of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley, I, and my cousin, and her mother. From the dim regions beyond the moun- 20 tains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away at length 25 through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the River of Silence,' for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its 30 bed, and so gently it wandered along that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on 35 gloriously forever. The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces that extended from the margins 40 away down into the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom, these spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were 45 carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so be-sprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red aspho- 50 del, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones of the love and the glory of God. And here and there, in groves about this grass, like wildernesses of dreams, 55 sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall, slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully towards the light that peered 5 at noonday into the center of the valley. Their bark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying with the zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of Syria doing homage to their Sovereign the Sun. The Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the waters of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the god Eros from that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers, starshaped, burst out upon the trees where no flowers had been known before. tints of the green carpet deepened, and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled at length into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of Eolus, sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and, settling in peace above us, sank day by day lower and lower until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up as if forever within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory. The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her 5 heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein. for the comfort of her spirit, she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her, return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were indeed beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would at least give me frequent indications of her presence; sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the 10 air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own. At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in the 15 songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found occurring again and again in every impressive variation of phrase. She had seen that the finger of Death 20 was upon her bosom,- that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a consideration which she revealed to me one 25 evening at twilight by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the 30 love which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and every-day world. And then and there I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow to her- 35 self and to Heaven that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth,- that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with 40 which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Elusion, should I prove 45 traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burden had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow (for what was she but a child?), and it made easy to her the 55 bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days afterwards, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had done 50 Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in Time's path formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on.- Years dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the ManyColored Grass; but a second change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our domain, and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the lulling melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Eolus, and more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream returned, at length, utterly into the solemnity of its original silence; and then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and, abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams of a holy perfume floated ever We said a few hurried words about Mr. Hawthorne in our last number, with the design of speaking more fully in the present. We are still, however, pressed for room, and must necessarily discuss his volumes more briefly and more at random than their high merits deserve. I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams 20 I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the The book professes to be a collection of mad clangor of arms, and the radiant tales, yet is, in two respects, misnamed. loveliness of woman, bewildered and in- 25 These pieces are now in their third retoxicated my brain. But as yet my soul publication, and, of course, are thricehad proved true to its vows, and the in- told. Moreover, they are by no means all dications of the presence of Eleonora tales, either in the ordinary or in the were still given me in the silent hours of legitimate understanding of the term. the night. Suddenly these manifestations 30 Many of them are pure essays; for ex-they ceased, and the world grew dark ample, Sights from a Steeple,' 'Sunday before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at at Home,' Little Annie's Ramble,'' A Rill the burning thoughts which possessed, at from the Town Pump,' The Toll-Gatherthe terrible temptations which beset me; er's Day,' The Haunted Mind,' 'The for there came from some far, far dis- 35 Sister Years,' 'Snow-Flakes,''Night tant and unknown land, into the gay Sketches,' and 'Foot-Prints on the Seacourt of the king I served, a maiden to Shore.' We mention these matters chiefly whose beauty my whole recreant heart on account of their discrepancy with that yielded at once,- at whose footstool I marked precision and finish by which the bowed down without a struggle, in the 40 body of the work is distinguished. most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration, 45 with which I poured out my whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? Oh, bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none other. Oh, divine was the 50 angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down. into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them and of her. I wedded, nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited 55 upon me. And once- but once again in the silence of the night-there came through my lattice the soft sighs which Of the essays just named, we must be content to speak in brief. They are each and all beautiful, without being characterized by the polish and adaptation so visible in the tales proper. A painter would at once note their leading or predominant feature, and style it repose. There is no attempt at effect. All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet this repose may exist simultaneously with high originality of thought; and Mr. Hawthorne has demonstrated the fact. At every turn we meet with novel combinations; yet these combinations never surpass the limits of the quiet. We are soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment that ideas so apparently obvious have never occurred or been pre |