Verses Writ with a Diamond

In her Imprisonment at Woodstock, these verses she wrote with her diamond in a glass window:

Much suspected by me,
Nothing proved be.
Quod Elizabeth the prisoner.

"And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men..."

Who cou'd have expected, that the Nile might have waters richer than the Potomack?

Hollow House, part 2

or, the Concluding Part, of the foregoing.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..."
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

I have call'd on the Professors of physic; I have no hesitation, when the bloody Inevitable looms over my people. But I am the exception; the most of my neighbors are now afflict'd by that Rottenness, Pilamania.

There are now scores of Pills, each coat'd with a slight Layer of sugar, so that it may rest easily on a tender Tongue. The Tablet, bone-white, of the size of a baby's digit, usually has enscrib'd upon its surface some inscrutable pink Writing; no doubt part of the Apothecary's arcane Arts.

I met Teuffeldreck's beloved Apothecary just yesterday, as I was requir'd to visit town for a most distressing Complaint. I found that, seemingly without connexion to my comestibles, my Buttocks had begun to erupt most fearfully.

I had ignor'd the Problem, and done my best to ignore the complications attendant upon such Issue, in polite Society; that is, I found myself treating my Gas as a kind of Bastard, an offspring unbidden, unwant'd, that I tried my best to pass off as another's Child, all the while nursing a secret, eager Pride. I cou'd stand the grimaces of my serving-People , and the mutters & wafting Paws of Mme. Bainton; but I knew that the End was near, when dear Ned Bearskin ask'd me, Epaph, have ye consum'd the Bear-fat? Or have you been hoodoo'd again, by King Bettie?

This was warning enough, so I took myself to the Dispensary, under the guise of asking for my Wife(which I thought an able disguise). I question'd the counter-man:

-If one was to be unduly troubl'd by wind, what might one do?
-Sir, perhaps eat earlier? For it troubles me mightily to take a meal and then lie abed, and my wife says that I stench up the bed awfully in such cases...
-Yes, yes; but if 'twere more than just a passing fancy - if it appear'd almost as a gaining occupation?
-Sir, there can be no such permanent Flatulence, for it fades, and passes, easy as it comes!
-I tell you, you must needs offer me a Remedy!

And here I slapp'd the counter, with a most grievous Consequence. The Apothecary, reclus'd in a hidden room, leapt forth. "Are ye distemper'd, sir? Are ye troubl'd by the complaint? Dearth of lusty tales? Need ye more Concentration?

He wink'd most lasciviously at me, as tho' I myself were the object of these suggestions, rather than the subject. I told him that I had no such issues, but Issues of a much different kind, that troubl'd me. He grinn'd at me, his leering lip split by a sore, "but surely - sire, - you wou'd find yourself better equipp'd to tackle the Day with a clearer head?"

-I know not what you mean, sirrah. I want only a remedy for my Wife, who is taken to bed with Wind.
-Taken to bed, ma-hah! (here he snuffed at his wrist, and appear'd to lick his cuff, which I believe held the remnants of his sup;)
-She is! I must needs help her!
-You can help her, Sire, by adjusting yr diseas'd Temper! Plainly, you have not flux'd yrself enough of that most perilous bile...

Here he gestur'd me over, but I refus'd, at which time he made various grunting Insinuations, about the wandering Uterus, and the necessity of periodically riding a See-saw, and of mucus collecting in the Brain, because not expell'd via the nostril.

I made neither head nor tail of it, but it was his haggling manner, that most attract'd my attention. He would let himself run riot, and then most disconcertingly quell his tongue, so that I found myself finishing his sentences in my Mind, most uncouth tho' they were. Even the counter-man, who had ample chance to tire of this Hectoring, listen'd rapt, as the Apothecary dispens'd wisdom on:
-the perils of self-abuse;
-inattention, as a valuable trait;
-inattention, as a disgusting canker that must needs medicative adjustment;
-bile, the lava that most overheats the heart;
-creativity, alloy of tar-bile & inattention (ergo, Tho. Jefferson, Geo. Washington, Col. Parke)
-women, a kind of cosmic bile - the primeval ether given appealing shape, so as to encourage unification with it, which we avoid at our peril.

I return'd most dissatisfied. Judging by his disquisition, I assum'd that Mrs. T. would soon discuss with him the dirty books my servants had been passing about, and that soon, he wou'd call at my house, pushing bottles of herbed Honey, & Dates rubb'd in the Waters of the James Flu., as a Panacea for dissolution. For, in such a world, where men candy the pills & dole them as Treats, will the Placebo be mistook for the Panacea.

At night, Mme. Bainton lay with me, reading the penultimate volume of some feminine epic - the disordering of the Curtains by the villainous Miss Mopsley results in, etc., or, the True & disordering Tale of a Poor innocent Handsome Braggart, betray'd by various Harpies who, etc. She is as obscure to me as the far side of the Mountain.

-Epaph, did you visit today the Apothecary?
-Aye (I was at this time translating Propertius into hexameters - a proposition less pleasing, certainly, than pentameter, but one assign'd me by some Freak of will). I ask'd & receiv'd.
-Well, I trust we shall have a calm and pleasing night. Oh, Lord save us - what is that Stench!

Hollow House, part 1

Or, the Lure of Pornography; & sundry Comments relating.

"Do you think I meant country matters?"
Shakespeare, Hamlet, III.2

A little Scum of dirty snow; a blasting, whorish wind. Only the slow erection of the Sun cou'd remind us, that soon enough He will stand upright and the leaves bustle again in the trees.

In this season when Persephone carts from her wormy home, Love most frequent visits the Bainton estate. Altho' servants will never exhaust their internecine intrigues, and the burghers and townsmen have fill'd my Ears to the brimming with tales of wintry Scandal, SPRING gives a new tenor & Complexion to the general Flux of emotion. The longer day will rejuvenate the trees; the increased heat will clot the skies with clouds; the grey, ice salt dust will disappear, and the streams fill again, beneath the burst of rain-storms.

But often enough the rain makes for a swampy mire, too. Yest., around four o' the clock, I had ensconc'd myself in the Publick House, attending to correspondence, doodling my tepid imitations of Lucian onto spare pages, et other such nonsense. In the midst of such dawdling repast, I saw enter thro' the door a grievous Couple, the Teuffeldrecks.

Herr T., more commonly Manfred, has been an invaluable Conduit between my fields & the bartering Lines of Norfolk. He keeps a pretty accounting House, uptown of myself, where the rooms are filled with Ledgers, thick & heavy as slabs of granite. His fasitidious habits extend to his quills, which he arranges in various orders (length of feather, thickness of point, speckle of feather, etc.), and sharpens their points every night before returning to his Rooms, back of his business.

There waits for him, Olga. She & I have manag'd a most remarkable peace these past months, & I fully intend to maintain the amity. Thus shall I present my tale without adornment, or comment:

The family T. sat at my Table, Manfred draped at Olga's elbow, despite having a good eight inches above her.

"Well, Epaph," she said, "I see you are busy as ever." She waved her knobby fingers that so emetically remind one of pigs' feet.

"Aye, I have much in the way of corrections to be made here. I apologize that I cannot better amuse refined palates such as yrs." Here, Manfred winced. I am sorry for that now.

"T'would take no refin'd palate for this fare, Epaph. Merely a sturdy Stomach, for when you start spouting your bile." Her lips, rippled like the curdlings of Cheese, jiggl'd in triumph. I had no appettite for this pinioning.

"Ah, ah - Tell me, Epaph, sir - Ah, do you find your Goodman Stubb well?" Manfred pluck'd at his snuffy nose with a stiff cloth. "I haven't chance to speak to him on the Market Days, but I repine most for his company, in this winter." Olga cast a rheumy eye on this comment, blinking with bovine scorn.

"Stubb keeps himself well. It is not Stubb that occupies my thoughts before sleep; 'tis his loutish cousin, Lester Jacob. I have hired him out for these next two years, & his sole industry has been corrupting the ears of my maids. Always & ever I stumble on him, hand buried in a petticoat, himself grumbling lascivious at an innocent ear."

"Oh I'm sure they are not so innocent as you say. Certainly you wou'd have taught them to know something of the world."

The thousand injuries of this beefy matron I could bear no longer. "Aye, worldly enough are they. But I only wish he would not spend himself on such pregnable women - I have trouble enough without children. I do wonder why he speaks of those pornographies so much."

I had said this in passing, but the report from her lips was as if I had skinn'd her back with my Buck-knife. "Why, indecent writings! Speaking of such a thing! We must needs send him away - for Physic!"

On Disgust, Considered as One of the Fine Arts

"He was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure his love would have been the most abject of sentiments - but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side."
--Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Ch. 29

In our Dominion, we are much dispos'd to laud & venerate good intentions. Let me pry an example from its native Granite, and set it in a golden Band, as an exemplum

Far from WILLIAMSBURGH, the most candy'd corner of Virginia, there are odious tasks to be done, with daily regularity. One of these is the making of syrup, and the further refining of the maple-tree's Sap till it come to pounds of Sugar. Thus, Saponi Ned & I oft take to the Woods, finding ourselves in the darkest Crevices & Hollows. Here, Dame Nature turns a pale Shoulder to the Sun's warming caress, and the ground holds a monstrous chill through the Seasons. Here we tap the Sap as it rises, and gather the sticky Resin while we may.

Yet, I betook myself 'round Joseph Stauber's fields, passing thro' his wife's Kitchen to enjoy the Biscuits she avails, and cross'd the Ridge back to my lands. Here, I find a line of trees quite Rott'd thro', the branches falling apart of their own, like the blacken'd Limbs of a Corpse.

When I queried Mme. Bainton & Ned about this most unusual development, they gave me a most mournful Stare, and then took a close Study of the Floorboards.

"Well?" ask'd I, "what reason cd be for the pestilential death?"

Ned unseat'd himself from his Haunches, and rose. "Epaph., 'twas my young man, Hyco, who belted the trees. They drain'd little sap, but have died in the year since. He is a boy with more enterprise than sense."

"Epaph., do not fly to one of yr Colics; he is but a boy, and that was another season. And, aside, he only had the best of intentions."

****
What a mockery of Sense! What counterfeit of Courtesy! Allow Folly to go uncorrect'd - and watch the Land become Waste. I have a hillside now, decorat'd & scour'd with the black Hulks of decaying wood, mold'd o'er with glowing fungus & the writhing bodies of Larvae. Anyone may stand at the Foot of Stauber's Oldfield, and watch scores of good American pounds rot before their very eyes!

An edifying Specktacle, and one produc'd all for the Benefit & instruction of the following sermon: that it is not the Result of an Action, but the Aim, that shou'd be consider'd most in judging its moral Worth. Thus, with a pretty Sentiment, we may fill our Bellies, even tho' we starve, by Error. But, all in good Faith!

Thus, I propose, amidst the Rot, a Revival. I open my Tent to the Mean, that I may give measure to their meanness; I give a path to the shiftless & Imbecile, that I may blast their loping step; I unbar my door to the Vain, that I may strike down their pride. I declare, that I will be an Artist, in Disgust!

Of Signs and Wonders

"There was another method of capnomancy which consisted of observing the smoke arising from poppy and jessamin seeds cast on burning coals."
---John Bumpus, Demonologia, 1827

"I been watchin' the roads, I been studyin' the dust."
--- B. Dylan

Just this night, I took myself en promenade to the Stadium, to do my dance in the chill Evening. While Exercises give enjoyment enough, trimming the Belly & quickening my sluggish Blood, the viscous & frigid Air adds a piquancy all its own. For what man does not enjoy the Shadow of his own breath on the ground? That most insubstantial part of him, made thick enough to catch light in its twirling curlicues? Or perhaps the razor-sharp thrill of a harsh Breeze, blown south by way of the Great Lakes?

I shudder to think that those self-same breezes that brush my branches have also touched a redoubt of Ft. Duquesne, or jolted an Acadian into watchfulness. Some nights, I think that I can see the very Eyes through the trees - as tho' a baleful visage appeared in the Face of the Appalachians, and mouth'd its Gallic nonsense at me.

My father was a great Interpreter of signs; he studied most prodigiously the Dents of Traffick-signs, the Colours of horse-Mucus, the arrays of Pine-needles, the emissions of Pocosins, and most especially what Wrinkles & stains happen'd to the rare English Pound he cou'd find. But his friends, esp. the noble Doctor Wigham Dodd, wou'd counsel him, ye have but little wisdom in ye, if ye wou'd seek the word of God in the flecks & Daubs of a fallen World!

But my father held it different; that just as Christ liv'd with the Sinners, so too he would betake his Intelligence to the meagerest Figures of God's creation; so he would seek the natural Philosophy in the Crannies. Sic, on the subject: Epaph, the world is a glorious, whirring Machine; the Great God wou'd have us check its parts & manage well the Grease.

& it is true that the Ancients held their mancies & Predictions in the highest. For who appears most as Wisdom's body in the Greek Dramatists, but sexless Tiresias, teller of hidden Truth? Who gives the Ides for Caesar's death, but a broken old Hag? And what gave Rome the sign of Caesar's Ascension, but a streaking Comet?

It wou'd appear that, tho' lacking a Caesar, the Heavens nonetheless offer Wonders. First in California, that distant shore of unparalleled Villainy; then in New York, quagmire of that peculiar business-wisdom, that pretends to Vision, but only by vast Ignorance. For ne'er have I met a Trader, dealer or worker of the Docks generally that did not boast eagerly of his Ignorance - that did not make it a very Badge of his manhood.
& this from them that would deal most with the Work of the World! But here we revisit a Common-place, that a professor of Literature hath no Ear for Poetry, and that a Engineer wou'd ignore an aqueduct, that a man wou'd sooner gaze upon a fresh Beauty than on his long-practic'd Wife - no matter how lovely she may be.

But so it is with the world, that Beauty, in the sense of the Philosophers, disappears when we stand too close to her. We must make a hard Journey past siren & Cyclops before we may see Ithaca afresh. It is no accident that Pausanias shows us an instance of divination with a Mirror - Captroptomancy - for it shows us the world again.

Thus it may well benefit the be-numb'd soul to have ghostly Strands, or fiery Comets, or phantom Missiles running thro' the skies, if only to bolden the glass and stone Skyline. Tho' the threat of Gallic duplicity & Weroance-wickedness has no mean weight, I wou'd not sacrifice the Wonder of a water-fall for the safe Trickle of a Creek.

When I walk'd across the Macadam-path that lines the Sherando Valley, to the Stadium for a moment of Exertion, I saw a Comet break through the heavenly Spheres like a flaming Pearl.

July, July!

This invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. --Phaedrus, Plato.

The Life of a country Parson cou'd have no greater Distractions & attendancies than mine; for every night I must spend in divers Quandries, Plans, and Executions. The bed 'pon which I recline offers the Figure of Mme. Bainton, taken to Complaint, crouch'd thro' her morning Hours above a Basin, heaving; the Candle by which I compose my Post-mails recalls Goodman's false Promise to retrieve newe Wax from Winchester, suppos'd to burn with a nigh-perpetual Flame; the open Window, by which a Breeze replenishes the starch'd Air, is yet fill'd with the groaning Murmur of Cattle, and the whisper'd Urgencies of fitful Loves that betray my Estate's Harmony with a Kiss.

Thus do I carp & moan. I took myself to walking about, a pasttime Mme Bainton has had me surrender, as my legs have creak'd more than an old leather Strap. Beneath my Knees a mysterious Fiber has been strain'd; the Physick's Counsel, thusly:

"Ye are sturdy & well-built. But Keep ye apprized, Sir, that eatin hevvy of the Hamm-hock, & then pursuin the Duckk in the feld, will only bring sorrow to ye. You must give mor rest to yr jints than ye have, for runnin and walkin cross these hilltops, and dinin in as uncommon a way as Ye do, ye must in time break yr poor body's heart. Remember, sir, a man is only so rich, as he can learn to let things in this world alone."

My Physic, tho' intention'd well, for it is true that I frequent those Siam & Indian Currees, that I delight my Tongue with the rich Flesh of the Duck, and that I have of a time stout'd myself with Drink, is yet not to be mistaken with a Galen. His Note came yesterday, while I was travailing the country with Ned Bearskin; &, like a meddlesome Beau, it had kept Company with my wife all the while, so that, besteam'd with Exertion & pleas'd with Spoil, I must needs revert to Contrition, lest Mme. Bainton threaten again to spatter my poor Frame with buckshot.

& so it was with some Risk that I took myself down the Plank-road to peer at the Moon, risen waxing over Massanutten Ridge. A pair of tiny Lights implied a Jett headed to the Federal City, as the flash of silver Earrings in a Garden hints at a demoiselle. The Interstate, usually a river of Commerce, lay silent as a Brook in August, dried up to bare Sand.

There is a Story, of this already storied Day, that in Albermarle Co. there liv'd an Enthusiastic Democrat, who believ'd Jefferson had "rais'd himself and his party one step higher in the temple of fame," by dying on the anniversary of Independence. When inform'd that Adams had died as well this die, he wou'd not credit such, and in the end wou'd only admit a "damn Yankee trick!"
***

"[Jefferson] remark'd on the tendency of his mind to recur back to the events of the Revolution. Many incidents he wou'd relate...he remarked that the curtains of his bed had been purchased from the first cargo that arriv'd after the peace of 1782." - Col. Randolph, grandson, of the deathbed.

It was a scene of Augury. George Wythe Randolph, who wou'd later chew up Pages of oratory in favor of Secession & dividing his grandfather's Country, was then only 8, & stood uncomprehending at the Old Sage's bedside. Old Tho. utter'd his advice, his admonitions, his final testaments to his grandchildren, & seeing the namesake of his old teacher so befuddled, he smiled, that "George does not understand what all this means."

Tho' much business is usually made of Old Tom's insistence that his Gravestone be simple, and no mention of his vaunt'd Presidency, Vice-Presidency, &c., be made, the more peculiar was this Command in his Instructions: that the Stone be hewn from the same Rock as his coarse Columns, that no one be tempt'd to destroy it for the value of the materials.

How well had Tom taken the Temper of his new Citizens! For sure as he said, his Countrymen have chopp'd at the Past, taking as little Reverence for an old Building as a Ploughman has for an uncut Field. For tho' a woodpile provides plenty enough warmth in Winter, in Summer it is only a dusty Refuge for Rattlesnakes. & thus have we treat'd our Patrimony, that we shou'd only make it a cold & zoned Museum, girdled apart from human Intercourse; or, that it should be slic'd up & grill'd, for the better Delectation of an Asphalt Impressario.

Up the Seaboard John Adams turn'd to Death in Peacefield. Thus did two Lights whisper, flicker, & vanish.
***

End, then, this copybook Post-Mail, with a copybook entry. Tho sat by his wife, who was sickly & dying. She cou'd no longer read, so she began to copy, in regular school-book Hand, these Lines from Sterne's Tristram Shandy:

"Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return - more every thing presses on -" [and here her Pen dropp'd, & Tho finish'd with] "and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!"

Beneath, in another hand, written by Jefferson, alone:

"...quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamurquidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est." -Aeneid V.709.

"let us follow, where the fates take us or take us back: whatever will be, every Turne of Fate can be overcome, by Endurance."