 | Sheppard Lee |  |
BOOK VII.
WHICH IS INTENDED AS A PENDANT TO BOOK I.,
AND CONTAINS THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG
GENTLEMAN OF FORTUNE.
1. CHAPTER I.
Containing an inkling of the life and habits of Mr. Arthur Megrim.
Having been carried from the scene of my late
transformation, as I mentioned before, physicked,
put to bed, and allowed to sleep off my troubles, I
awoke late on the following morning, feeling very
comfortable, notwithstanding the bruises on my ribs,
and with an uncommonly agreeable, though lazy
sense of the enjoyment of lying a-bed. Indeed,
this was my only feeling. I woke to a consciousness,
though a vague one, of the change in my condition;
and this, together with what I saw around
me, when I had succeeded, after some effort, in getting
my eyes a little opened, it may be supposed,
would have filled me with surprise, and excited in
me a great curiosity to inquire into matters relating
to Mr. Arthur Megrim.
Such, however, was not the case. I looked upon
the elegantly-adorned chamber in which I lay, and
the sumptuous robes of my bed, with as much indifference,
my life; and as for the happy destiny that now
seemed opening upon me, I scarce thought on it
at all.
Nor can I say that I felt in any way elated at my
fortunate escape from the hangman and the anatomists.
I remembered that affair with a drowsy indifference
as being a matter of no further consequence
to me; and as for Mr. Arthur Megrim's
friends and kinsmen, his interests and relations in
life, I thought to myself, with a yawn, “I shall
know them all in good time.”
I was content to take things as they might come,
and eschew labours of mind as well as efforts of
body. Curiosity, I felt, was a tumultuous passion,
and I therefore resolved to avoid it. In this mood
I turned over on the other side, and took a second
nap.
From this I was roused, after a time, by some
one tugging at my shoulder, who proved, upon examination,
to be a very elegant-looking mulatto-boy
—that is, a boy of twenty-five years or thereabouts
—who signified, in language as genteel as his person,
that it was exactly half past eleven o'clock,
and therefore time for me to get up.
“Augh—well!” said I, taking about thirty seconds
to gape out each word, it seemed such tiresome
work to articulate; “what do you want?”
“Want you to get up, sah. Missie Ann says it
does you no good to sleep so long.”
“Augh—who is Missie Ann?”
“Lar bless us,” said the gentleman, turning up
the white of his eye, “Missie Ann is massa's sister!”
“Who is massa?”
“You, massa—Massa Arthur!”
“Augh—well; and who are you?”
“'Paminondas, massa. Coat very nicely brushed;
very fine day; will do you good, sah, to get up
and taste the air. Regular Indian summer, sah.”
“You may go to the devil.”
“Yes, sah.”
With that I turned over for another nap, which
I should undoubtedly have taken, had I not been
interrupted, just as I was falling asleep, by the entrance
of a lady of a somewhat starched and venerable
appearance, though not more than six or
seven years older than myself, I being perhaps
twenty-five or six.
“A'n't you ashamed of yourself, Arthur!” said
she. “Do tell me—do you intend to lie a-bed for
ever?”
“Augh—pshaw!” said I. “Pray, madam, be so
good as to inform me who you are, and—augh
—what you want in my chamber?”
“Come,” said the lady, “don't be ridiculous,
and fall into any of your hyppoes again. Don't
pretend you don't know your own sister, Ann
Megrim.”
“I won't,” said I; “but—augh—sister, if you
have no objection, I should like—augh—to sleep
till dinner is ready.”
“Dinner!” screamed my sister, Ann Megrim;
“don't suppose you will ever be able to eat a dinner
again. You know the doctor says it is your hard
eating and your laziness together that have destroyed
your digestive apparatus; and that, if you
don't adhere to the bran bread and hickory ashes
tea, you'll never be cured in the world.”
“What!” said I, “am I sick?”
“Undoubtedly,” said my sister Ann; “your
digestive apparatus is all destroyed, and your
nerves too. Did not you faint last night when
they were galvanizing the bodies? Have you not
lost all muscular power, so that you do nothing but
lie on a bed or sofa all day long? Oh, really,
brother Arthur Megrim, I am ashamed of you. A
man like you—a young man and a rich man, a
man of family and genius, a gentleman and a
scholar, a man who might make himself governor
of the state, or president of the nation, or any
thing—yet to be nothing at all except the laziest
man in Virginia, a man with no digestive apparatus,
a poor nervous hyppo—oh, it is too bad! Do
get up and stir yourself. Mount your horse, or go
out in the carriage. Exercise, you know, is the
only thing to restore strength to the digestive apparatus.”
“Sister Ann,” said I, “the more you speak
of my digestive apparatus, the more—augh—the
more I am convinced you don't know what you
are talking about. I am resolved to get up and
eat my dinner—”
“Of bran bread and hickory ashes,” said my
sister.
“Of canvass-back ducks and terapins,” said I.
At which Miss Ann Megrim expressed terror and
aversion, and endeavoured to convince me that such
indulgence would be punished by a horrible indigestion,
as had been the case a thousand times
before.
But cogent as were her arguments, I had, or felt,
one still stronger on my side, being a savage appetite,
which was waking within that very digestive
apparatus she held in such disesteem, and which
became the more eager the more she besought me
to resist it.
The discussion was so far advantageous that it
set me wide awake; and by-and-by, the zealous
Epaminondas having made his second appearance,
I succeeded, with his assistance, in getting on my
clothes and descending to the dining-room, where,
to the great horror and grief of my affectionate
relative, I demolished two ducks and a half (being
the true canvass-backs, or white-backs, as they call
them in that country), and a full grown tortoise, of
the genus emys, and species palustris. And in
this operation, I may say, I found the first excitement
of pleasure which I had yet known in my
new body, and displayed an energy of application
of which I did not before know that I was capable.
Nor am I certain that any ill consequences followed
the meal. I felt, indeed, a strong propensity to
throw myself on a sofa and recruit after the labours
I should get into my carriage (for it seems I had
one, and a very handsome one too), and drive
about to avoid a surfeit.
In this I consented to gratify her wishes, whereby
I gratified one of my own; for I fell sound
asleep within five minutes after starting, and so
remained until the excursion was over.
Then, being as hungry as ever, and not knowing
what else to do, I picked my teeth over a newspaper,
and nodded at a novel until supper was got
ready, which (disregarding Miss Megrim's exhortations,
as before) I attacked with the good-will I had
carried to my dinner, eating on this occasion two
terapins and a half and one whole duck, of the
genus anas, and species vallisneria.*
The only ill consequences were, that I dreamed
of the devil and his imps all night, and that I awoke
in a crusty humour next morning.
2. CHAPTER II.
The happy condition in which Sheppard Lee is at last placed.
If there be among my readers any person so
discontented with his lot that he would be glad to
exchange conditions with another, I think, had
would have desired an exchange with him above
all other persons in the world; for Mr. Megrim
possessed all those requisites which are thought to
ensure happiness to a human being. He was young,
rich, and independent; of a good family (he boasted
the chivalrous blood of the Megrims); of a
sound body, and serene temper; and with no appetite
for those excesses which ruin the reputation,
while they debase the minds and destroy the peace
of youth. His years, as I have mentioned already,
were twenty-five or six; his revenues were far
above his wants, and enabled him to support his
town-house, which was the most elegant one in the
village, where he lived remote from the care and
trouble of his plantations; and as for independence,
that was manifestly complete, he being a bachelor,
and the sole surviver of his family, excepting only
his sister, Miss Ann Megrim, who managed his
household, and thus took from his mind the only
care that could otherwise have disturbed it.
What then in the whole world had Mr. Megrim
to trouble him? Nothing on earth—and for that
reason, to speak paradoxically, he was more
troubled than any one else on earth. Labour, pain,
and care—the evils which men are so apt to censure
Providence for entailing upon the race—I have
had experience enough to know, are essential to
the true enjoyment of life, serving, like salt, pepper,
mustard, and other condiments and spices, which
are, by themselves, ungrateful to the palate, to give
without them. Who enjoys health—who is so
sensible of the rapture of being well, as he who
has just been relieved from sickness? Who can
appreciate the delightful luxury of repose so well
as the labourer released from his daily toil? Who,
in fine, tastes of the bliss of happiness like him
who is introduced to it after a probation of suffering?
The surest way to cure a boy of a love of
cakes and comfils, is to put him apprentice to a
confectioner. The truth is, that the sweets of life,
enjoyed by themselves, are just as disgusting as
the bitters, and can only be properly relished when
alternated or mingled with the latter.
But as this is philosophy, and the reader will
skip it, I will pursue the subject no further, but
jump at once from the principle to the practical illustration,
as seen in my history while a resident in
the body of Mr. Arthur Megrim.
I was, on the sudden, a rich young man, with
nothing on earth to trouble me. I had lands and
houses, rich plantations, a nation or two of negroes,
herds of sheep and cattle, with mills, fisheries, and
some half dozen or more gold-mines, which last—
and it may be considered, out of Virginia, a wondrous
evidence of my wealth—were decidedly the
least valuable of all my possessions. With all
these things I was made acquainted by my sister
Ann, or otherwise, it is highly probable, I should
have known nothing about them; for during the
whole period of my seventh existence, I confined
the least curiosity to visit my plantations, which, as
everybody told me, were in good hands.
In the village itself I had every thing about me
to secure happiness—a fine house, abundance of
servants, the whole under the management of the
best of housekeepers, my sister Ann, with horses
and carriages—for which, however, I cared but little,
thinking it laborious to ride, and as tedious to be
driven—and, above all, friends without number,
who treated me with a respect amounting to veneration
(for, it must be remembered, I was the richest
man in the county), and with a degree of affection
little short of idolatry; but whom, however, I
thought very troublesome, tiresome people, seeing
that they visited me too often, and wearied me to
death with long conversations about every thing.
Among them all, there was but one for whom I
felt any friendship; and he was a young doctor
named Tibbikens, for whom my sister Ann had a
great respect, and who had been retained by her to
assist in taking care of my digestive apparatus—
that same digestive apparatus of mine being a hobby
on which my sister lavished more thought and
anxiety than I believe she did upon her own soul
—not meaning to reflect upon her religion, however,
for she was a member of the Presbyterian
church, and quite devout about the time of communion.
The cause of her solicitude, as she gave
me frequent opportunity to know by her allusion to
the fact, was her having been once afflicted in her
which it had been the good fortune of Doctor
Tibbikens to cure by a regimen of bran bread and
hickory ashes water; and hence her affection for
the doctor and the remedy. I liked the doctor myself
because he had the same solicitude about my
health, without troubling me with advice except
when I asked it, or finding much fault when I did
not follow it; because his conversation was agreeable,
except when he was in a scientific humour,
and did not require any efforts on my part to keep
it up; because he liked terapins and white-backs
as well as myself, and was of opinion they were
wholesome, provided one ate them in moderation;
and, in fine, because he took pains to help me to
amusement, and was of great assistance in dissipating
somewhat of that tedium which was the first
evil with which I was afflicted in the body of Mr.
Arthur Megrim. I believe the doctor had a strong
fancy for my sister; but she used to declare she
could never think of marrying, and thus being
drawn from what she felt to be the chief duty of
her existence, namely—the care of my digestive
apparatus.
3. CHAPTER III.
The employments of a young gentleman of fortune.
And now, having mentioned tedium of existence
as being an evil to which I soon felt myself subject,
I will say that it was one I found more oppressive
than the reader can readily imagine. I had
nothing in the world to do, and, as it happened, my
disposition did not lead me to seek any thing. I
was, in a word, the very man my sister had so reproachfully
called me in our first conversation—
that is, the laziest man in all Virginia; and, upon
reflection, I can think of no person in the world
who would bear a comparison with me in that particular,
except myself. “None but himself can be
his parallel,” as somebody or other says, I don't
know who, a sentiment that is supposed to be absurd,
inasmuch as it involves an impossibility, but
which becomes good sense when applied to me.
In my original condition, in the body in which I
was first introduced to life, I certainly had a great
aversion to all troublesome employments, whether
of business or amusement, being supposed by many
persons to be then what as many considered me
now—to wit, the laziest man in my state. Whether
I was lazier as Sheppard Lee the Jerseyman or
Arthur Megrim the Virginian, I am not able to say.
In both cases indolence was at the bottom of all
between the two conditions, that whereas I had felt
in one the evils of laziness to a poor man, I was
now to discover in the other what were its evils to
a man of fortune.
My chief employments in the body of Mr. Arthur
Megrim were eating and sleeping; and I certainly
should have done nothing else, had I been
allowed to follow my own humours. Eating and
sleeping, therefore, consumed the greater portion
of my time; but it could not consume all; nor
could the residue be filled up by the occasional excursions
in my curricle, and the still more unfrequent
strolls through the village, into which I was
driven by my affectionate sister, or cajoled by her
coadjutor, the doctor, in their zealous care of my
digestive apparatus. As for visits and visitations,
I abhorred them all, whether they related to the
bustling young gentlemen of the neighbourhood, or
the loquacious ladies, old and young, who cultivated
the friendship of my sister.
Employ myself, however, as I might, there always
remained a portion of each day which I could
not get rid of, either in bed or at the table. On
such occasions I was devoured by ennui, and thought
that even existence was an infliction—that it was
hard work to live. According to my sister's account,
I was a scholar and a genius; in which case
I ought to have found employment enough of an
intellectual nature, either in books or the reflections
of my own mind. I certainly had a very large and
week passed by in which I did not receive a huge
bundle of the newest publications from a book-seller,
who had long had it in charge thus to supply
me. Of these I usually read the title-pages, and
then turned them over to my sister, or, which was
more common, lent them to my neighbours, who,
male and female together, came flocking to borrow
the day after, and sometimes the day before, the
arrival of each package, taking good care to rob
me of those that were most interesting. The truth
is, if I ever had had the power of reading, I had
now lost it. Books only set me nodding.
As for exercising my mind in reflections of its
own, that was even more laborious than reading;
and I contracted a dislike to it, particularly as my
mind wore itself out every night in dreaming, that
being a result of the goodly suppers I used to eat.
It is true, that I one day fell into a sudden ferment,
and being inspired, actually seized upon pen and
paper, and wrote a poem in blank verse, forty lines
long, with which I was so pleased that I read it to
Tibbikens and my sister, both of whom were in
raptures with it, the former carrying it off to the
editor of the village paper, who printed it with such
a eulogium upon its merits, as made me believe
Byron was a fool to me, while all the young ladies
immediately paid my sister Ann a visit, that they
might tell me how they admired the beautiful piece,
and lament that I wrote so seldom. I forget what
the poem was about; but I remember I was so
to write another, which, however, I did not
do, having unfortunately begun it in rhyme, which
was difficult, and my fit of inspiration and energy
having left me before I got through with my next
dinner. It was my writing verses, I suppose, that
caused me to be called a genius; but it seems I
was too lazy to be inspired more than once or twice
a year.
I relapsed into ennui, and, truly, I became more
tired of it before it was done with me, than was
ever a labourer of his hod or mattock.
4. CHAPTER IV.
Some account of the inconveniences of having a digestive apparatus.
But ennui was not the worst of the evils that
clouded my happy lot. Some touches of that diabolical
disorder, the curse of the rich man, which,
as my sister so often gave me to know, had threatened
the peace of Mr. Arthur Megrim several times
before, now began to assail my own serenity, and
threw gall and ratsbane over my dinners. I had
slighted her warnings, and despised her advice, and
now I was to pay the price of indiscretion. In a
word, that very digestive apparatus, on which she
read me a lecture at least thrice a day, began to
grumble, refuse to do duty, and strike; though, unlike
setting it the example, it struck, not for high
wages, of which it had had a surfeit, but for low
ones, in which, however, its master was scarce able
to oblige it, having an uncommonly good appetite
most of the time; and even when he had not, not
well knowing how to dispose of his time unless at
the table.
My faithful sister, who had been so constant to
predict, was the first to detect the coming evil, and,
step by step, she pointed it out to my unwilling
observation.
“Arthur,” said she, one morning as we sat at
breakfast, “your eyelid is winking.”
“Augh—” said I, “yes; it is winking.”
“It is a sign,” said she, “your digestive apparatus
is getting out of order!”
“Augh!” said I, “hang the digestive apparatus!”
for I was tired of hearing it mentioned.
“Arthur,” said she, the next day, “you are beginning
to look yellow and bilious!”
“Yes,” said I; on which she declared that “the
alkalis of my biliary fluids”—she had studied the
whole theory and nomenclature of dyspepsy out
of a book the doctor lent her—“were beginning to
fail to coalesce, in the natural chymical way, with
the acids of the chymous mass; and that no better
argument could be desired to prove that my digestive
apparatus was getting out of order.” And she
concluded by recommending me to regulate my diet,
and fall back upon bran bread and hickory ashes.
In short, my dear sister assailed me with a pertinacity
equal to the disease itself, so that I came,
in a short time, to consider her as one of its worst
symptoms.
To add to my woes, Dr. Tibbikens began to go
over to her opinion, to talk of my digestive apparatus,
and to drop hints in relation to bran bread and
hickory ashes, which would decidedly have robbed
him of my friendship, had I not at last found myself
unable to do without him.
To make a long story short, I will omit a detailed
history of my tribulations during the winter,
and skip at once to the following spring; at the
opening of which I found myself, young, rich, and
independent as I was, the bond-slave and victim of
a malady to which the woes of age and penury are as
the sting of moschetoes to the teeth of raging tigers.
Reader, I have, in the course of this history, related
to thee many miseries which it was my lot, on
different occasions, to encounter, and some of them
of a truly cruel and insupportable character. Could
I, however, give thee a just conception of the ills I
was now doomed to suffer, which, of a certainty, I
cannot do, unless thou art at this moment the victim
of a similar infliction, I am convinced thou
wouldst agree with me, that I had now stumbled
upon a grief that concentrated in itself all others
of which human nature is capable.
Dost thou know what it is to have thy stomach
stuffed, like an ostrich's, with old iron hoops and
brickbats—or feeling as if it were? to have it now
thy head filled with achings, dizziness, and
streaks of lightning? thy heart transformed into
the heels of a hornpipe-dancer, and plying thy ribs,
lungs, and diaphragm with the energy of an artiste
in the last agony?
If thou dost, then thou wilt know that bodily distress,
of which the above miseries form but a small
portion, is the least of the evils of dyspepsy—that
its most horrible symptoms develop themselves in
the mind. What care those devils, falsely called
blue (for they are as black as midnight, or the bile
which engenders them), for the youth, the wealth,
the independence, the gentility of a man whose digestive
apparatus is out of order? The less cause
he may have in reality to be dissatisfied with his
lot, the more cause they will find him; the greater
and more legitimate his claims to be a happy man,
the more fierce and determined their efforts to make
him a miserable one.
The serenity of my mind gave way before the
attacks of these monsters; sleeping and waking,
by day and by night, they assailed me with equal
pertinacity and fury. If I slept, it was only to be
tormented by demon and caco-demon—to be ridden
double by incubus and succuba, under whose bestriding
limbs I felt like a Shetland pony carrying
two elephants. My dreams, indeed, so varied and
terrific were the images with which they afflicted
me, I can compare to nothing but the horrors or last
delirium of a toper. Hanging, drowning, and tumbling
least frightful of the fancies that crowded my sleeping
brain: now I was blown up in a steamboat, or
run over by a railroad car; now I was sticking fast
in a burning chimney, scorching and smothering,
and now, head downwards, in a hollow tree, with
a bear below snapping at my nose; now I was
plastered up in a thick wall, with masons hard at
work running the superstructure up higher, and now
I was enclosed in a huge apple-dumpling, boiling
in a pot over a hot fire. One while I was crushed
by a boa constrictor; another, perishing by inches
in the mouth of a Bengal tiger; and, again, I was
in the hands of Dr. Tibbikens and his scientific
coadjutors of the village, who were dissecting me
alive. In short, there was no end to the torments
I endured in slumber, and nothing could equal
them except those that beset me while awake.
A miserable melancholy seized upon my spirits,
in which those very qualifications which everybody
envied me the possession of were regarded
with disgust, as serving only the purpose of adding
to my tortures. What cared I for youth, when it
opened only a longer vista of living wretchedness?
What to me was the wealth which I could not
enjoy? which had been given me only to tantalize?
And as for independence, the idea was a mockery;
the servitude of a galley-slave was freedom, unlimited
license, compared with my subjection to dyspepsy,
and—for the truth must be confessed—the
doctor; to whom I was at last obliged to submit,
nolens volens.
5. CHAPTER V.
The same subject continued, with an account of several surprising
transformations.
Whether Dr. Tibbikens treated me secundum
artem or not, I cannot say; but true it is,
that instead of getting better, I grew gradually
worse, until my melancholy became a confirmed
hypochondriasis, and fancies gloomy and dire, wild
and strange, seized upon my brain, and conjured
up new afflictions.
Getting up early one morning, I found, to my
horror, that I had been, in my sleep, converted
into a coffee-pot; a transformation which I thought
so much more extraordinary than any other I had
ever undergone, that I sent for my sister Ann, and
imparted to her the singular secret.
“Oh!” said she, bursting into tears, “it is all on
account of your unfortunate digestive apparatus.
But, oh! brother Arthur, don't let such notions
get into your head. A coffee-pot, indeed! that's
too ridiculous!”
I was quite incensed at her skepticism, but still
more so at the conduct of Dr. Tibbikens, who,
being sent for, hearing of my misfortune, and seeing
me stand in the middle of the floor, with my
left arm akimbo, like a crooked handle, and the
me by the shoulders and marched me towards a
great hickory fire that was blazing on the hearth.
“What do you mean, Tibbikens?” said I.
“To warm you,” said he: “I like my coffee
hot; and so I intend to boil you over again on that
very fire!”
At these words I started, trembled, and awoke
as from a dream, assuring him I had made a great
mistake, and was no more of a coffee-pot than he
was; an assurance that doubtless prevented my
undergoing an ordeal which I was neither saint
nor fire-king enough to endure with impunity.
Indeed, I was quite ashamed of having permitted
such a delusion to enter my brain.
The next day, however, a still more afflicting
change came over me; for having tried to read a
book, in which I was interrupted by a great dog
barking in the street, I was seized with a rage of a
most unaccountable nature, and falling on my hands
and feet, I responded to the animal's cries, and
barked in like manner, being quite certain that I
was as much of a dog as he. Nay, my servant
Epaminondas coming in, I seized him by the leg
and would have worried him, had he not run roaring
out of the chamber; and my sister Ann coming
to the door, I flew at her with such ferocity that
she was fain to escape down stairs. The doctor
was again sent for, and popping suddenly into the
chamber, he rushed upon me with a great horsewhip
he had snatched up along the way, and fell
the while, “Get out, you rascal, get out!”
“Villain!” said I, jumping on my hind legs, and
dancing about to avoid his lashes, “what do you
mean?”
“To whip you down stairs, you cur!” said he,
flourishing his weapon again.
On which I assured him as earnestly as I could
that “I was no cur whatever;” and indeed I was
quite cured of the fancy.
My next conceit was (the morning being cold,
and my fire having gone out), that I was an icicle;
which fancy was dispelled by the doctor saluting
me with a bucket of water, on pretence of melting
me; and I was doubtless melted all the sooner for
being drenched in water exactly at the freezing-point.
After this I experienced divers other transformations,
being now a chicken, now a loaded cannon,
now a clock, now a hamper of crockery-ware, and
a thousand things besides; all which conceits the
doctor cured without much difficulty, and with as
little consideration for the roughness of his remedies.
Being a chicken, he attempted to wring my
neck, calling me a dunghill rooster, fit only for the
pot; he discharged the cannon from my fancies by
clapping a red-hot poker to my nose; and the
crate of crockery he broke to pieces by casting it
on the floor, to the infinite injury of my bones.
The clock at first gave him some trouble, until,
pronouncing it to have a screw out of order, he
pincers, and by a single wrench dissipated the delusion
for ever.
6. CHAPTER VI.
An account of the woes of an Emperor of France, which have never
before appeared in history.
In short (for I do not design particularizing my
transformations further), there was no conceit entered
my brain which Dr. Tibbikens did not cure
by a conceit; until, one morning, by some mysterious
revelation, the nature and means of which can
only be guessed at, I found that I had been elected
the Emperor of France, and announced my intention
to set sail for my government immediately, in
the first ship of the line which the American executive
could put at my disposal.
This fancy quite disconcerted Dr. Tibbikens, and
I heard him say to my sister, “He is a gone case
now,—quite mad, I assure you;” which expression
so much offended me, that I ordered him from my
presence, and told him that, were it not for my respect
for the American government, whose subject
he was, I would have his head for his impertinence.
But wo betide the day! the doctor returned to
me in less than an hour, bringing with him every
physician in the village, who, having looked at me
argued hotly together for another hour. At the expiration
of this they returned, led by Tibbikens,
who, to my great satisfaction, now fell on his
knees, and “begged my imperial majesty's pardon
for presuming to request that I would allow myself
to be dressed in my imperial majesty's robe of
state;” which robe of state, although I was surprised
at its plainness (for it was of a coarse linen
texture, without gold lace or jewels, and of a very
strange shape—closed in front and open in the
rear), I immediately consented to put on, so
pleased was I with the homage of the doctor.
If I was surprised at the appearance of the imperial
garment, much more was I astonished when,
having slipped my arms into its sleeves, I found
them,—that is, my arms,—suddenly pinioned,
buried, sewed up, as it were, among the folds of
the robe, so that, when it was tied behind me, as it
immediately was, I was as well secured as when I
was tied up for execution on a former occasion.
Alas! the disappointment to my pride! I understood
the whole matter in a moment: my imperial
robe of state was nothing less nor more than a
strait waistcoat, constructed upon the spur of the
moment, but still on scientific principles.
And now, being entirely at the mercy of the deceitful
Tibbikens, I was seized upon with a strong
hand, my head shaved and thrust into a sack of
pounded ice, from which it was not taken until after
a six days' congelation, and then only to be transferred
comfortable on the first application, but which, within
a few hours, I had every reason to pronounce
the most execrable covering in existence. And
what made it still more intolerable, I never complained
of it that Tibbikens did not assure me “it
was the imperial coronet of France,” and then exclaim,
in the words of some old play, “Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown.”
And then I was physicked and starved, phlebotomized,
soused in cold water and scalded in hot,
rubbed down with rough blanket cloths and hair-brushes
as stiff as wool-cards, scorched with mustard
plasters, bombarded by an electrical machine, and
in general attacked by every weapon of art which
the zeal of my tormentors could bring into play
against me.
In this way, if I was not cured of my disease, I
was, at least, brought into subjection. I ceased
complaining, which I did at first, and with becoming
indignation, of the traitorous and sacrilegious
violence done to my anointed body, for such I at
first considered it. The arguments of my persecutors,
however, to prove the contrary, were irresistible,
being chiefly syllogisms, of which the
major proposition was calomel and jalap, the minor
mustard plasters and blisters, and the conclusion
cold water, phlebotomy, and flax-seed tea. The
same arguments, varied categorically according to
circumstances, convinced me that if my imperial
elevation, or the notion thereof, was not sheer insanity
which was the same thing in effect; and I therefore
took good care, when bewailing my hard fate, not
to charge it, as I at first did, to the democratic
wrath and jealousy of my tormentors.
7. CHAPTER VII.
In which Sheppard Lee is convinced that all is not gold which
glistens.
This conversion of mine to their own opinion—
or, if the reader will so have it, my return to rationality—had
a favourable effect on my doctors.
They removed (very circumspectly indeed) the
strait jacket from my arms; and then, seeing I
made no attempt to tear them to pieces, but was,
on the contrary, very quiet and submissive, and
that, instead of claiming to be Charlemagne the
Second of France, I was content to be Mr. Arthur
Megrim, of Virginia, they were so well satisfied of
the cure they had effected, that they agreed to free
me of their company, and so left me in the sole
charge of Tibbikens and my affectionate sister.
In this manner I was cured of hypochondriasis;
for although I felt, ever and anon, a strong propensity
to confess myself a joint-stool, a Greek demigod,
or some such other fanciful creature, I retained
so lively a recollection of the penalties I had already
curb on my imagination, and resolved for the future
to be nothing but plain Mr. Megrim, a gentleman
with a disordered digestive apparatus.
I was cured of my hypochondriasis—I may say,
also, of my dyspepsy—being kept by Tibbikens
and my sister in such a starved condition, that it
was impossible I should ever more complain of indigestion.
But I was not yet cured of my melancholy;
nothing but canvass-backs and terapins
could cure that—and these, alas! were never more
to bless my lips. Tibbikens had pronounced their
fate, and with them, mine: thenceforth and for ever
my diet was to be looked for in those—next to my
digestive apparatus—chief favourites of my sister,
bran bread and hickory ashes; my stomach, he
solemnly assured me, would never be able to sustain
any thing else.
I say, therefore, I was melancholy; and great
reason had I to be so, condemned to live a life of
ascetic denial, with the means in my hand to purchase
all the luxuries in the world, and, which was
worse, an eternal desire to enjoy them.
To banish this melancholy—alas! never to be
banished—and perhaps to give me a little appetite
for my bran bread and ashes, for which I never
could contract a relish, the friendly Tibbikens
again seduced me into the open air and my carriage,
and carried me about to different places in
which he thought I might find amusement. In this
way he had conducted my prototype, the true Arthur
the luxuries of the table brought him too near to
dyspepsy; and it was this uncommon kindness of
the physician, in dragging the unfortunate gentleman
to witness the galvanic experiments on the
bodies of the executed felons, which had helped
him so suddenly out of his own. Dr. Tibbikens
was not, indeed, very choice whither he carried
me, lugging me along with equal alacrity to a horse-race,
a barbacue, or to the bed-sides of his patients.
All his efforts, however, were vain. The memory
of what I had suffered, with the anticipation
of what I was yet to endure, with, doubtless, the
addition of the ills for the time being, preyed upon
my spirit. I followed him mechanically, and in a
sort of torpor, incapable of enjoying myself, incapable
almost of noting what passed before me. I
was tired of the life of the young and affluent Mr.
Megrim, and I should have been glad to exchange
his body for some one's else: but, unluckily, my
mind was so weighed down with indolence, melancholy,
and stupefaction, that I really did not
think of so natural a means of ending my troubles.
In this condition, greatly to the concern of my
friendly physician, I remained until towards the
end of March, when an incident happened which
gave an impulse to my spirit greater than it had
ever before experienced.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
In which the Author stumbles upon an old acquaintance.
The doctor being accustomed to lead or drive
me whithersoever he would, and I, half the time,
following without question, I found myself led one
day to a house in the town, where was a remarkable
exhibition, or show, as our people called it,
which had for two days kept the whole village in
an uproar. So great, however, was the abstraction
and indifference of my mind to all objects, ordinary
and extraordinary alike, that I had paid not
the least attention to the accounts of the matter
which my sister and other persons, and especially
the faithful Epaminondas, had, during these two
days, poured into my ears. Hence, when I entered
the exhibition-room I was ignorant of its nature,
and, indeed, indifferent as to making myself better
acquainted with it.
Tibbikens, however, appeared to be unusually
delighted, and saying, “Now, Megrim, my lad,
you shall see a wonderful proof of the strides that
science is making,” led me through a crowd of the
villagers, old and young, and male and female,
who were present, up to a large table, where, truly
enough, in glass cases placed upon the same, was
a spectacle quite remarkable; though I must confess
me as Tibbikens expected.
It consisted of an infinite variety of fragments
from the bodies of animals and human beings, imitations,
as I supposed at first, in wax, or some
other suitable substance, and done to the life;
but Tibbikens assured me they were real specimens,
taken from animal bodies, and converted by
scientific processes, known only to the exhibiter,
into the substances we now saw; some being stony
and harder than flint, some again only a little indurated,
while others retained their natural softness,
elasticity, and other peculiarities of texture. There
were a dozen or more human feet, as many hands,
three heads (one of which was a woman's with
long hair, and another a child's), a calf's head, a
dog's leg, the ear of a pig, the nose of a horse, an
ox's liver and heart, a rat, a snake, and a catfish,
and dozens of other things that I cannot now remember,
all of which were surprisingly natural to
behold, especially the head of the woman with the
long hair, which looked as if it had just been cut
off—or rather not cut off at all, for there was no
appearance of death about it whatever, the lips
and cheeks being quite ruddy, and the eyes open
and bright, though fixed.
“So much for science!” said Tibbikens. “Look
at that boy's head! it don't look so well as the others;
but who would believe it was solid stone?
Sir, it is stone, and silicious stone too; for last
night I did myself knock fire out of its nose with
nick there on the nostril. Well now, there's the
man's head; its texture is ligneous, or, to speak
more strictly, imperfectly carbonaceous, though the
doctor calls it calcareous. But the wonder of all
is the woman's head; look at that! That, sir, is
neither silicious nor carbonaceous, but fleshy—I
say, sir, fleshy. It remains in its natural condition;
the skin is soft and resilient; you see the naturalness
of the colour, of the lips, and, above all, of
the eyes. And yet, sir, that head, that flesh is indestructible,
unless, indeed, by fire, and strong acids
or alkalis. It is embalmed, sir! embalmed according
to the new process of this doctor with the
unpronounceable Dutch name; and I can tell you,
sir, that the man is a chymist such as was never
heard of before. Davy, Lavoisier, Berzelius—sir,
I presume to say they are fools to him, and will be
as soon forgotten as their stupid, uncivilized system.
How little they knew of the true science of
chymistry! They stopped short at the elements—
our doctor here converts one element into another!”
Tibbikens spoke with an air of consequence and
some little oratorical emphasis, for he was surrounded
by spectators, who listened to what he said
with reverence. As for me, the little interest excited
in my bosom by the novelty of the exhibition
had begun to wear away, and I was sinking again
into apathy—the faster, perhaps, for the doctor's
conversation, of which I had a sufficiency every
day—and I suppose I should, in a few moments,
around me, when suddenly a buzz began, and a
murmuring of voices, saying, “Here comes the
doctor! now we shall have the grand show!” At
the same moment a grinding organ began its lugubrious
grunting and squeaking, and the master of
the exhibition, stalking up to the table, and making
his patrons a sweeping semicircular bow, cried, in
a rumbling bass voice, and in accents strongly foreigh,—
“Zhentlemens and leddees—I peg you will excuse
me for keep you waiting. Vat you see here,
zhentlemens and leddees, is very strange—pieces
of de poddies human and animal, shanged py a
process of philosophie very astonish, misty, and
unknown to de multitude; some hard shtone, some
shtone not so hard, and some not shtone at all. But
I shall show you de representation vich is de triumph
of art, de vonder of science, de excellence
of philosophie! For, zhentlemens and leddees, I
am no mountepank and showmans, put a man of de
science, a friend of de species human, and a zhentleman
of de medical profession; and vat I make
dese tings for is not for show, nor for pastime, nor
for de money, but for de utilitie of de vorld.”
“Surely,” thought I to myself, “I have heard
that voice before!”
I looked into the man's face as soon as the spectators
had cleared away a little—for I was too indifferent
to put myself to any trouble—and I said
I have seen that man before!”
“Where?” said Tibbikens.
“In Jersey,” I replied, hastily; for I could not
forget the tall frame, the hollow jaws, the solemn
eyes, and the ever-grinning mouth of Feuerteufel,
the German doctor, who had made himself so famous
in my native village, and who was one of the
last persons I remembered to have seen upon that
day when I bade farewell to my original body.
“Come,” said Tibbikens, looking alarmed at my
last words, “you don't pretend to say you were ever
out of Virginia in your whole life!”
“Augh—oh!” said I, recollecting myself; “I
wonder what I was talking about? What—augh
—what is the man's name?”
“Feuerteufel,” said Tibbikens.
9. CHAPTER IX.
Containing an account of the wonderful discoveries of the German
doctor.
I was not then mistaken! It was Feuerteufel
himself, only he had learned a little more English.
This was the first and only one of my original acquaintances
whom I had laid eyes on since my departure
from New-Jersey, nearly two years before.
I felt some interest, therefore, in the man, but it
apprehension. The truth is, I never liked the German
doctor, though why I never could tell. But
what was he doing—what could be his object going
about the country with petrified legs, arms, and
heads? I had scarce asked myself the question
before it was answered by the gentleman himself,
who had been speaking, though I know not what,
all the time I was talking with Tibbikens, and
while I was cogitating afterward.
He had worked himself into a fit of eloquence,
warming with enthusiasm as he dwelt upon the
grandeur and usefulness of his discovery. He
made antic gestures with hands, head, and shoulders;
he rolled and snapped his eyes in the most
extraordinary manner in the world; and as for his
mouth, there is no describing the grimaces and contortions
which it made over every particularly bright
idea or felicitous word.
“Zhentlemens!” said he, “I have discover de
great art to preserve de human poddie; I can
make him shtone, I can make him plaster-Paree,
I can make him shuse as he is, dat is flesh—put
flesh vat is never corrupt. Very well! vat shall I
do mit de great discoaver? Mit de first I shall
preserve de poddies of de great men—de kings,
and de shenerals, and de poets, and de oder great
men; and you shall see how mosh petter it is tan
de statues marple. How mosh petter to have de
great man as de great man look in de flesh, mit his
eyes shining, his skin and his colour all de pure
Suppose you have de painter who take de looking-glass;
and when you look in him, glue down de reflection
dare for ever!—de natural colour, de natural
drawing, de light and de shade? How mosh
petter dat dan de picture in dirty oil and ochre! (I
tell you, py-the-py, zhentlemens, I do study dat
art, and I hopes some day to make de grand discoaver—to
put you reflection on de proper substance,
like de looking-glass, dat shall hold on to
de colours, and hold'em on for ever!) Vell, zhentlemens,
I do de same ting mit de statue; I take
de nature as I find him—de shape, de colour, de
lips, de eyes, de hair, de all—and I do, py my process,
make him indestructeeble, and not to alter for
ever. Here is de little poy's head dat I have done
in dat style. Dat is de art! dat is de art of making
de shtone mummee! It shall pe de most costly,
de most expense, and derefore only for de great,
great men—de shenerals of war, de preshidents,
and de mens in Congress vat makes de pig speech.
Vell! den I shall make de oder style—de process
to turn de poddie into plaster-Paree—vat I call de
plaster mummee. Dat is not so dear; dat is de
art for de great men vat is not so great as de oders
—for de leetle great men—de goavernors, de editors
of de paper, and de mens vat you give de grand
dinners to. Vell! den I shall make de oder style
—de style for de zhentlemens and leddees in zheneral,
vat vill not go to rot in de ground like de horse
and de dog—de style of de flesh unshange—vat I
woman head mit de long hair. Dis is de sheep
plan; it vill cost no more dan de price of de funeral.
It vill be done in tree days. De poddie is
made incorruptible, proof against de water, vat you
call water-proof. It is de process for de peoples in
zheneral; and I do hopes to see de day ven it shall
pe in universal adopt by all, and no more poddies
put into de earth to rot, and to make de pad health
for de peoples dat live. It is de shtyle for de unwholesome
countrees. Zhentlemens, you have
know dat de Egyptians did make all dare friends
mummee. Why for dey do dat? Very good reason.
De land upon de Nile vas unwholesome, and
de purrying of de poddies made it vorse. There
vas no wood dere to purn de poddies. Vell den,
dey did soak dem in de petrolium, de naptha, and
oder substance antiseptique, and hide dem in de catacomb
and de pyramid. Dere vas no decay, no
corruption to poison de air; it vas vise plan!
“Now, zhentlemens, I have devise my plan for
de benefit of America, vich is de most unwholesome
land in de earth, full of de exhalation and de
miasm, de effluvium from de decay animal and vegetable.
You shall adopt my plan for embalm your
friends, and you no have no more pad air for de fevers,
de bilious, de agues, and de plack vomit.
Zhentlemens, I have shuse complete my great secret;
it vas de study of my whole life; I have
shuse succeed. I have de full and complete specimens
of de process for make de sheep mummee,
in zheneral, vich do always love to pe sheep. I
have start carry dem to de great city New-Orleans;
and if de peoples do adopt him dere, dey shall have
no more complain of de great sickness vat kills de
peoples; for dere shall be no more rot of man's
flesh in de swampy ground. Here you see de ox-heart,
de catfish, de bullfrog, de six hands and feet,
all done into flesh and plood mummee. Here is
de woman's head. It has been done dis tree year.
But you shall see de grand specimen, de complete
figure, de grown man turn into de mummee, and
look more natural dan de life. Dat is de triumph
of mine art! It was my first grand specimen, done
dere is now two year almost, and it did cost me
mosh expense and money, and some leetle danger.
Now you shall say de specimen is perfect, or you
shall have my head; it is vat I value apove my life
—de complete! de grand! de peautiful!—But you
shall see!”
10. CHAPTER X.
Containing a more wonderful discovery on the part of Sheppard Lee,
with perhaps the most surprising adventure that ever befell him.
Having thus completed his lecture, or oration,
of which I must confess I had begun to grow tired,
the German doctor suddenly stepped to a great
round box, like a watchman's box, that stood at the
leaves of which it was composed, swung them
round with a jerk, exhibiting an inner case, evidently
of glass, but entirely covered over with a
thick curtain. This he proceeded to remove, by
tugging at a string which hoisted it to the ceiling;
and as it ascended there was disclosed to the eyes
of the wondering spectators a human figure within
the case, clad loosely in a sort of Roman garment,
and for all the world looking entirely like a living
being, except that the eyes were fixed in a set unnatural
stare, and the attitude was a little stiff and
awkward.
A murmur, with twenty or more faint shrieks
from the females present, attested the admiration
with which the spectators caught sight of this wonderful
triumph of skill and science; but I—heavens
and earth! what were my feelings, what was my
astonishment, when I beheld in that lifeless mummy
my own lost body! the mortal tenement in which
I had first drawn the breath, and experienced the
woes, of life! the body of Sheppard Lee the Jerseyman!
This, then, was its fate—not to be anatomized
and degraded into a skeleton, as the vile
Samuel the kidnapper had told me, but converted
into a mummy by a new process, for the especial
benefit of science and the world; and Dr. Feuerteufel,
the man for whom I had always cherished
an instinctive dislike and horror, was the worthy
personage who had stolen it, what time I had myself
interrupted his designs upon the body of the
I looked upon my face—that is, the face of the
mummy—and a thousand recollections of my original
home and condition burst upon my mind;
the tears started into my eyes with them. What
had I gained by forsaking the lot to which Providence
had assigned me? In a moment, the woes of
Higginson, of Dawkins, Skinner, Longstraw, Tom
the slave, and Megrim the dyspeptic, rushed over
my memory, contrasted with those lesser ones of
Sheppard Lee, which I had so falsely considered as
rendering me the most miserable man in the world.
What other notions may have crowded my brain,
what feeling may have entered my bosom, I am
now unable to describe. The sight of my body
thus restored to me, and in the midst of my sorrow
and affliction, inviting me, as it were, back to my
proper home, threw me into an indescribable ferment.
I stretched out my arms, I uttered a cry,
and then rushing forward, to the astonishment of all
present, I struck my foot against the glass case
with a fury that shivered it to atoms—or, at least,
the portion of it serving as a door, which, being
dislodged by the violence of the blow, fell upon
the floor and was dashed to pieces. The next instant,
disregarding the cries of surprise and fear
which the act occasioned, I seized upon the cold
and rigid hand of the mummy, murmuring, “Let
me live again in my own body, and never—no!
never more in another's!”
Happiness of happiness! although, while I uttered
the words, a boding fear was on my mind,
lest the long period the body had lain inanimate,
and more especially the mummifying process to
which it had been subjected, might have rendered
it unfit for further habitation, I had scarce breathed
the wish before I found myself in that very
body, descending from the box which had so long
been its prison, and stepping over the mortal frame
of Mr. Arthur Megrim, now lying dead on the
floor.
Indescribable was the terror produced among the
spectators by this double catastrophe—the death
of their townsman, and the revival of the mummy.
The women fell down in fits, and the men took to
their heels; and a little boy, who was frightened
into a paroxysm of devotion, dropped on his knees,
and began fervently to exclaim,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
In short, the agitation was truly inexpressible,
and fear distracted all. But on no countenance was
this passion (mingled with a due degree of amazement)
more strikingly depicted than on that of the
German doctor, who, thus compelled to witness the
object of a thousand cares, the greatest and most
perfect result of his wonderful discovery, slipping
off its pedestal and out of his hands, as by a stroke
of enchantment, stared upon me with eyes, nose,
and mouth, speechless, rooted to the floor, and apparently
stepped past him, however, hurrying to the door,
with a vague idea that the sooner I reached it the
better, his lips were unlocked, and his feelings found
vent in a horrible exclamation—“Der tyfel!” which
I believe means the devil—“Der tyfel! I have empalm
him too well!”
Then making a dart at me, he cried, in tones of
distraction, “Stop my mummy! mine gott! which
has cost me so much expense!—stop my mummy!”
I saw that he designed seizing me, and being
myself as much overcome with fear as the others,
I made a bolt for the door, knocking down my
friend Tibbikens and half a dozen other retreating
spectators as I left it, darted into the air, and in a
moment was flying out of the village on the wings
of the wind.
I had a double cause for terror; for, first, before
I had got twenty steps from the exhibition-room
(for my Roman garments were in the way of my
legs, and I did not run so fast as I managed to do
afterward), I heard certain furious voices cry from
the room—“It is all a cheat! the mummy was a
living man! let us Lynch him and the doctor!”
and, secondly, I could also hear, close at my heels,
the voice of the doctor himself, who had escaped
close behind me, eagerly vociferating, “Stop my
mummy, and I will pay twenty dollare! stop my
mummy!”—by both which noises it was made apparent
that I was in danger of being Lynched, or
subjected to a second process of mummification.
Nerved therefore by my fears, I gathered the
skirts of my toga about my arms, and fled with
all my might, blessing my stars that I had at last
recovered that mortal tenement, which, with all its
troubles, I was now convinced was the best for my
purposes in the whole world.
| Sheppard Lee | |