Chapter 3 No.3

The service I was able to render an official personage connected with -- College in New England procured me access to the library belonging to that institution. In common with many of my fellow-citizens, I had previously enjoyed the pleasure of responding to circulars petitioning for money to buy books for interment in this choice literary catacomb; nay, I was even allowed the satisfaction of an annual stare at them through an iron grating, and of reading a placard to the effect that nobody was allowed to enter an alcove or take down a volume.

As it occurred to me that the generous donors could not object to add one more to the select half-dozen or so, who, by having the privilege of the shelves, could really use the library, I demanded this favor of the gentleman who desired to recompense me for what I had done for him. The Librarian, who valued books as things capable of being locked up in cells like criminals, there to figure numerically to the confusion of rival institutions, was manifestly disturbed when I presented my credentials. The authority, however, was not to be questioned;-I was to be admitted to the library at any hour of the day; and I took care to drop a civil expression to imply my estimation of the privilege and my purpose of enjoying it.

Wanting the leisure to attempt that ponderous undertaking known as "a course of reading," it became my habit to browse about the building upon Saturday afternoons, and finally to establish myself, with whatever authors I had selected, in a certain retired alcove devoted to the metaphysicians. This comfortable nook opens just behind Crawford's bust of the late President T--, and is nearly opposite the famous Mather Safe. As it is possible that I am addressing some who are not graduates of -- College, nor familiar with its library, it may be well to say a word of the history of the spacious and ancient coffer to which allusion is made.

The Mather Safe-which, by the way, is not of iron, but of oak heavily bound with that metal-is said to have been among the possessions of the author of the "Magnalia." Its last private proprietor was a collateral descendant of the Mathers, an eccentric character, popularly known as Miser Farrel. As Farrel was a bachelor, and had the reputation of being enormously rich, the College authorities of his day were accustomed to treat him with distinguished consideration, and went so far, I believe, as to vote him some minor degree. What effect these academic blandishments may have had upon their object cannot at present be determined. For when the day came for the long-expected will to be opened, it was found that the old gentleman had bequeathed to the College only his Mather Safe, with certain papers carefully let into the wood-work in one corner of the same,-which papers were not to be removed or opened for a hundred years.

It may be conceived that this bulky benefaction was not accepted with the best grace, particularly as the testator made no provision for considerable expense necessarily incurred in moving and setting it up in the library. Yet, not satisfied with this culpable negligence, Mr. Farrel had affixed still other conditions to the acceptance of his gift. He had caused two massive locks to be put upon the Mather Safe, of which he enjoined that the respective keys should be forever held by the President and Treasurer of the College, to the end that neither could have access to its contents except in the presence of the other. Moreover, he required that the Safe should be used only as a receptacle for packages which the depositors desired to keep from the world for at least fifty years. Of course no right-minded corporation would have endured this posthumous fussiness, were it not for the mysterious papers left in the Safe,-these being considered instruments whereby immense possessions would finally come to the College. But, as their worthy friend, however niggardly in other respects, had taken care to save nothing in lawyers, there were really no means of disregarding his wishes, except by relinquishing all claims under the will. And so, many years ago, the Mather Safe came to be opened to the public on the conditions already declared. At first, it was matter of surprise that so many persons appeared to claim the privilege of Farrel's singular legacy. Carefully enveloped packages had been consigned to various periods of oblivion by all conditions of men and women. These were numbered and registered in a volume kept for the purpose; they were severally addressed, perhaps to a specified descendant of some living person, perhaps to the future occupant of some professor's chair or metropolitan pulpit.

It was near the Mather Safe, as I have already said, that my favorite alcove opened. In the short winter afternoon, when the twilight thickened without the building, and the type began to blur within, I would lay aside my book and muse over wild rumors of secrets borne by this messenger between the generations. Journals and letters, it was said, were there concealed, which should change the current gossip of history, and explode many bubble-reputations that had glittered on the world. There were hints of deadly sins, committed by men high in Church and State, which their perpetrators lacked the courage to confess before their fellows, but which, in the bitterness of remorse, they had recorded in the Mather Safe, to blacken their fame to future times,-thus taking a ghastly satisfaction from the knowledge that they should not always appear as whited sepulchres before men. There was vague talk, also, of funds which had been deposited to found some professorship in the College, to furnish some instruction which the age was not advanced enough to accept. Then, too, there were intimations of endowments to establish scholarships for women, who,-so it was argued,-after the increasing enlightenment of a few score of years, would be admitted to every privilege of culture offered to men. In short, there was matter enough to send a curdling tingle through the blood, as this tough old ark, buffeting slowly through the years, entered its familiar night. If there was deficiency in the testimony which consigned any special wonder to its keeping, there was, doubtless, sufficient truth in common reports to justify the imagination in interpreting misty hieroglyphics of its own device.

During the latter part of a certain August-my family being established at the seaside-I determined to devote a long day to the College Library. The fact was, that a trifling domestic incident-no other than the smoking of a kitchen-chimney-had turned my attention to the conditions of atmospheric changes. Certain phenomena I had observed seemed inconsistent with the law assumed in popular text-books. Indeed, as it appeared to me, modifications of a received theory-which might be determined by a diligent comparison of existing authorities-would suggest a household economy of great practical importance. Certain facts, which must have been noted by all the great voyagers of the world, might give me data from which to establish the suspected conclusion. I accordingly repaired to the library at a very early hour, and labored through the day in collecting and committing to writing what had been observed by many eminent navigators upon the point in question. Four o'clock in the afternoon found me too tired to apply any process of analysis to the observations obtained. I therefore retired to my accustomed seat, took down almost the first book which came to hand, and resigned myself to the impressions of a favorite author. I had passed about an hour in a delicious state of dreamy tranquillity, sometimes reading, sometimes pausing to color the faded page with the brilliant hues of more modern thought, when my attention was attracted by a familiar voice proceeding from the neighborhood of the Mather Safe.

"The President and Treasurer were to have been here at five o'clock."

"I have heard nothing of it," said the Librarian. "I am sure that the President is out of town for the day."

"Strange! strange!" exclaimed the Reverend Mr. Clifton, in a very excited tone. "I wish to make a deposit of great importance in the Mather Safe. I had the assurance that the Safe should be opened at five this afternoon. Here, read the solemn promise upon which I have come from Foxden!"

The Librarian glanced at an open letter which Clifton held out to him, and said, in a quiet manner,-

"The President promises to meet you in the College Library on the afternoon of Thursday, the twenty-fourth instant; to-day is Wednesday, the twenty-third."

"Is it possible?" muttered the clergyman, with a look of startled despair. "Pardon my disturbance. I have been hardly myself for these last weeks. Yet I can wait."

I spoke to Mr. Clifton as he was about to leave the library. He blenched at hearing my voice, and strove to conceal the package beneath his arm.

"How do my good friends in Foxden?" said I, inviting him into my alcove. "Is it true that Dr. Dastick has presented his cabinet of curiosities to the town?"

"What are you reading?" said the clergyman, in a tone of curt authority very foreign to the mild persuasiveness of his usual professional accents.

I exhibited the title of the book: it was the "Meditations of Descartes."

"And do you follow those who vainly seek for truth through the inner world of man, not conforming themselves to the necessities of the outward world and the teachings of Revelation?"

I defended the usefulness of some acquaintance with the original and powerful thinker, whose apologies are certainly profuse enough to satisfy the most orthodox.

"Yes; I suppose you read Spinoza, Hegel, Fichte, the Atheism of D'Holbach, Utilitarianism Systematized by Auguste Comte! Did you ever go fishing in a dory when the wind was off shore?"

There was an alarm in the eye and manner of Mr. Clifton, a tremulous restlessness in his speech, which warned me to avoid discussion, and endeavor to soothe his agitation. It was only to the last interrogatory, therefore, that I made some light reply.

"The sea sparkles gayly," pursued the clergyman, in the manner of an extemporaneous preacher who strives to catch in a net of decorations some illustration which presents itself,-"the boat tosses on from wave to wave, for dories will sail before the wind. Soon we are miles from shore, and throw the anchor. What auspicious expansion of soul and body! How we slide up and down the backs of great billows, and cast our lines with ever-varying success! But the night comes, and with it the necessity of rowing back against wind and tide. Ah, then how long the lonely ocean-leagues! How distant the time when we may hope to stand confused and giddy upon solid earth! Some never see the land again, but are swept out into the storm and darkness, and are lost,-lost!"

"I presume I understand the significance of your similitude," I replied, a little annoyed at this inopportune indulgence of the pastoral privilege. "You would imply the dangerous tendency of a certain sort of philosophical speculation; and so far we doubtless agree. Yet I ought to say, that, in cases where personal investigation is possible, I would take neither popular clamor nor learned dogmatism as conclusive evidence against any writer's honesty and usefulness. With the vulgar, genius has always seemed a sort of madness; and should a man rise preeminent above the teachers of his generation, his wisdom would appear to them as foolishness."

A change came over the face of Clifton as I said these words. It was as if a mask had fallen. Perchance he had wished to appear to me in that character of instructor which he desired some competent person to assume to him. Now, the relaxed muscles and averted eye only asked the sympathy of an equal. He spoke with forced, and almost grating, utterance.

"Then you have used experience well enough to know that some minds may bear into the world a light, a knowledge too fine for general perception, too pure for even exceptional recognition."

"I fully believe it possible," I said. "Yonder old Safe, if rumor says true, holds many mystic signals which the past and present could address only to the future,-signs meaningless, no doubt, to you or me, but which the freemasonry of higher intelligence shall render plain in the time hereafter."

"And what if I had come," exclaimed Clifton, eagerly,-"what if I had come to add to those deposits which are not for this time, but which may be for other times? What blame to me, if I am here to do this? Should we common men, who find a life full of active duties presented to our acceptance,-should such as we, I say, receive this world as a pageant before which we must sit down and evolve a doctrine? The conceit of external education is at present too strong to acknowledge a divine element radiating from the depths of the soul, and finding in the mind only an awkward and imperfect instrument. Any extravagance is now tolerated, but an extravagance of spirituality; and we find altogether wanting the perception, that, rising from the gross symbols of language, can know the subtile and precious emotion which in a more advanced state of being those symbols might suggest."

As it was evident that Mr. Clifton was laboring under great nervous excitability, I judged it prudent not to question the sequence of what he said, or even demand that it be made intelligible by further explanation. Indeed, I was sufficiently occupied in striving to identify this incomprehensible person with my familiar acquaintance, the pastor of the First Church in Foxden. It occurred to me that something had once been said of Clifton's connection with that topsy-turvy sodality popularly known as "The Transcendentalists." But this was many years ago; and the world always supposed that he had outgrown his early errors, and found, in the liberal theology of New England, a more genuine inspiration. In meeting him in his pastoral relation, I had only remarked that he was one of those men who find it very difficult to resist the social influences into which they may be thrown. This was probably the case even where that influence tended to degrade him from the plane he would have occupied, if left to himself. His spiritual life seemed to lack that vigor and buoyancy so infinitely important to contemplative men. He appeared to be ever yearning for something which should add robustness to his convictions. After a pause of some moments, Clifton again addressed me.

"Recollections of moments, months of excitement, of intense power, have returned! They may not fade again unspoken. You shall know my long-cherished secret. Younger in years, you may scarcely advise; but, at least, you may give sympathy that shall confirm my decision. I have engaged rooms at the neighboring hotel. Come and pass the evening-nay, the night-with me; for much must be read and thought and spoken before the black veil of personality can be lifted between us."

It has already been observed that my family were at the seaside. This circumstance left me sole disposer of my time and localities. How, then, resist the inclination to see out the adventure upon which I had stumbled? Let me credit myself also with a worthier motive: I saw that my companion was in no state to be left to himself,-and, really, there was no mutual friend to whom I could consign him. Accordingly I offered my arm in a manner to imply acquiescence in his proposal.

We soon reached the hotel, and ascended to a room in the remote corner of a spacious wing. Clifton at once turned the key, placed his package upon the table, and proceeded to employ a stray bit of carpet in stopping a ventilator which communicated with the entry. Having satisfied himself that this passage was rendered impervious to sound, he drew two chairs up to the table, motioned me into one, and planted himself in the other with the air of a man, in popular phrase, about to make a night of it.

"Did you ever hear of Herbert Vannelle?" he asked, abruptly.

It can hardly be necessary to say that a substitute is here placed for the name really mentioned.

I replied in the negative, and asked where the gentleman lived.

"He lives nowhere on earth; he is dead,-just dead."

"A friend of yours?"

"A master once; now a presence eluding, haunting, torturing. He left me this manuscript; it is a 'Philosophy of the Absolute.'" (Here Clifton drew from a curiously contrived case of parchment a cluster of pages.) "It has now twenty-two hours to appear in the present century. You shall devote the night to reading it, and tell me that I have acted well."

A sultry August evening, a smoky boarding-house lamp, much skirmishing of mosquitoes, and-a manuscript system of philosophy! The prospect was not inviting. The reading of other people's manuscripts is surely the crucial test of a devoted benevolence. There are few ways in which I am so little ready to oblige my fellow-men. I had, indeed, at times, been induced to inspect sundry romances in blotted embryo; but, as yet, nobody had called upon me with a system of philosophy. Printed philosophy is none too easy reading. But to sit there, under the guardianship of Clifton, and spell out the dim dogmatism of some nebulous fanatic,-of course it was not to be thought of for a moment. With a suave periphrasis of speech I questioned the expediency of the proposition.

"I shall ring for candles that will burn during the night," said Mr. Clifton, heedless of my expostulation. "Also some refreshment. You take tea, I suppose? You shall read the first ten pages of Vannelle's writing. It is possible you may exercise self-control enough to abandon it unfinished. But you will not sleep tonight."

There was a confidence in the minister's tone which gave rather unpleasant emphasis to this final prophecy. Still, I believed myself capable of the ten pages without establishing a hopelessly wakeful condition,-indeed, it was something to be guarantied against the opposite infirmity. The tea, accompanied by a few thin shavings of toast, presently arrived. The means of procuring light were also furnished us. Clifton's hand lay heavily upon the manuscript until the attendant had disappeared for the last time, and the door was locked behind him. He then opened the papers before me, and signified that the time had come. I braced myself as for a serious undertaking.

Thus I accepted the task. How give words to the singular emotions which soon possessed me? As if some charm, some spell of magnetism, had been given to the paper, my whole consciousness was riveted upon it. I know not how to represent this bold, this startling attempt to establish a positive basis for metaphysical philosophy, an exact science of all things human and divine. Here was a man, perchance of more courage and conscience, perchance of more devilish recklessness, than any of his contemporaries. But how deal with what came to me from that wondrous writing in the ambiguities of common language? All thought-even supposing it embodied in a perfect form of speech-is subject to the limitations of the recipient mind. My own glimpses of the writer's meaning were necessarily most indistinct. I cannot attempt to transfer them. I was controlled by a force not my own. The shadow of a mysterious power was over me. The mists of sentimental pantheism were left far below the clear-cut summits whither the reader was invited to ascend. There was an interpretation of Revelation far more removed from the apparent letter than that of Swedenborg. Here was reaffirmed (though for a widely different purpose) what the Romish Church has ever declared,-that the Scriptures, recording spiritual truth, cannot be comprehensible to the natural understanding,-that, while the Sacred Writings contain a natural letter, it can be translated into spiritual verity only by a few exceptional men. If this scheme of philosophy was an idealism, it nevertheless manifested itself through the plainest realities. The solution of the problem seemed to come not from one point, but from all points. Certainly there was a tendency towards the supersensible; but this direction was taken through stern grappling with the actual. At one time I struggled against the august spirit that was borne in upon me; at another, I was utterly subdued by the lofty enthusiasm of the writer,-something within me capable of absolute cognition seemed responding to his appeals. But the pith and vitality of this marvel could be recognized only by long experience. And here the student was required to stake his soul upon a perilous cast. For, if not pursued and fathomed to full satisfaction, this view of things would be disturbing, paralyzing. With any half-acceptance a man might scarcely live. It must fashion the mind as an artist fashions the passive metals into a musical instrument, and then every event in time might touch it to exquisite harmony. But the more ravishing the beauty which seemed offered through perfect realization of this knowledge, the more blighting would be its effects, if entertained in the spirit of a selfish dilettanteism. For in certain passages were breathed faint suggestions, that moral codes held sacred by the people could not bind the initiated,-nay, that what seemed most evil might be so explained as to become wholly legitimate to the elect.

It was far into the night. I had gone over about a third of the manuscript. Sharp questions assailed my ears. Was I bound to jeopard all the common good of life for the chance of-just failing to know existence from a higher plane? Could I ascend so far above the frailties of average men as to receive in purity and innocence the license which acceptance of this strange scheme would surely give? Dim-sighted as I was, it was necessary to rise and dispel this splendid phantasm. I shuddered in sudden alarm at the danger which threatened me. By a spasmodic movement, in which I failed to recognize any presence of my will, the manuscript was closed and handed to Clifton. Welcome existence under coarsest and harshest terms, rather than tamper with such fearful possibilities!

For hours the minister had gazed into my face, partaking the excitement to which he had subjected me. He had lighted and trimmed the candles, as was necessary, but had never broken silence. And now there came from him the deep sigh of relief from an absorbing interest; he sighed as a little child when the fairytale is ended and the tense strain of attention may be relaxed.

"What was this man?" I demanded, hurriedly.

"What he was is to be discovered through these writings, if it may be found out at all. What he was is not for me nor for you to know. It is possible that he may meet with competent judges hereafter, even among men. Look at this address."

Clifton handed me a little memorandum relating to the ultimate disposition of the manuscript. It was to remain for eighty years in the Mather Safe, and was then to be consigned to the occupant of the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the College.

"Say rather to the last minority-candidate for the professorship!" I exclaimed. "I doubt if the actual winner of that comfortable possession will feel disposed to abandon the market-worth of conventional acquirements, and set forth as a humble student of unpopular truth."

The minister seemed struck with the suggestion, and made the alteration I had indicated.

The darkest hour of the night had come. Every sound of human activity had long ago ceased. It was the quiet time when one may most easily probe an intense experience. I felt that more was to be known,-something which the minister longed to tell,-something to which what he had caused me to read was to serve as a prelude. I suspected how powerless must have been this sensitive man in the presence of the Idea which he had carried. Doubtless, in one of his peculiar tendencies, it might prevent all harmonious action,-it might ever goad the intellect, and crush the heart. As the confession trembled upon the lips of Clifton, I signified my profound sympathy. It is an awful moment, when a mature man tries to put off the solitariness of his life.

What was then communicated I can repeat only in the first person. The pathetic earnestness of the speaker imprinted on my memory the very phrases that he used; there can be few verbal changes as they now flow from the pen.