 | Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
EPILOGUE.
A WORD TO THE READER.
Thus far have we progressed in our translation of the Ancient Manuscripts,
which record in their peculiar Cypher, the history of Paul Ardenheim
the Monk of Wissahikon. Much we have written, and yet at the
present moment we have scarcely passed the threshold of that history.
We have seen the fearful education of Paul Ardenheim's Soul; we have
seen it writhing into shape, in scenes of temptation and despair. We
have yet to look upon that Soul, in its matured vigor, embodied in deeds,
at once generous and sublime. What pen shall dare attempt the portraiture
of the entire life of Paul Ardenheim, and trace him step by step from
the chamber of Leola to his grave? Step by step through the American
Revolution, among scenes which written History has blazoned to the
world, and among scenes which still slumber, dumb and unrecorded, in
the charnels of the Past? What hand shall dare to lift the curtain, and
reveal Paul Ardenheim gliding like a Ghost—like an embodied Fate—
through the incredible horrors and gloomy triumphs of the French Revolution?
For glancing over the untranslated volumes, which in their difficult
Cypher, enshroud these Legends of a past age, we read the name of
the Monk of Wissahikon, not only in connection with the history of
Washington and the New World; but also on the red page, which tells
of the Old World in travail for its freedom with Robespierre the Messiah
of Blood, presiding over its glorious agonies. At the present moment,
neither our time, nor the limits of this work permit us to translate the entire
life of Paul Ardenheim; and array its various and mysterious incidents
in the familiar garb of every-day speech. And yet, at this moment,
when we are about to part after journeying together so long, it is in my
heart, Reader, to speak a word to you. Let us talk together like two
friends, who after traversing many a hill and valley—side by side, in storm
and calm—attain the last hill-top, and linger for a moment, with their eyes
fixed upon the wide landscape of their pilgrimage. Like friends, I say,
let us talk together, and say a frank word to each other. It is not for me,
now, to attempt to explain the mysteries of the present work; many things
as sunlight, by a simple reference to that great science of the Soul, whiel,
in our day is called Magnetism. But for the present, I will not attempt
any explanation of these mysteries; in a future work I may lift the veil
from all that now appears incredible in the history of Paul Ardenheim.
But this work is Improbable—its events are wild—unnatural—the very
machinery of the story is based upon supernatural agency!' To objections
like these, I might answer, in a frank and confidential way, my
friend:
`Truth is stranger than Fiction. Wherefore? Because Fiction only
revels and glows in the Probable, while Truth in her noblest form, dares
and conquers the Impossible. Was ever Fiction so wild, so romantic, so
utterly defiant of all your rules of criticism, as the actual life of Napoleon
Bonaparte. Fiction in its present form as displayed in the poems and
novels of the present day, does not present extravagant views of life, or
paint pictures that transcend probability; its delineations, or the contrary,
are only extravagant in their tameness, and transcendant in their mathematical
probability. The truest of true histories never look at first sight,
like Truth. Tell a man of Franklin's day, that a time would come—was
coming, and the boy of ten years old might live to see it—when carriages
would go by themselves; when ships would cross the ocean without
sails; when a man in Boston would converse with his friend in New
Orleans, by means of a wire stretched along an infinitude of poles! Ten
chances to one, but Dr. Franklin himself would have put you out of his
office, for assertions wild as these: without a doubt, any one of Dr. Franklin's
neighbors would have quelled your lunacy in a mad-house. The
veriest man of “common-sense” of Franklin's day,—the merest gossip of
a neighborhood, or a newspaper could have told you, that your brain was
mad, your skull soft, your blood red-hot with fever.
How many years is it since a crowd of our most respectable citizens—
men of common-sense, mark you—none of your vague dreamers, but substantial
men, familiar with business, and eloquent in bank notes—stood
laughing and jeering on a Philadelphia wharf, while crazy John Fitch attempted
to propel a boat without sails; merely by the aid of paddles and
steam? Poor John Fitch, how they pitied him, these men of Matter-of-Fact!
He starved to death, while his “Folly” that is the boat intended
to be propelled by the agency of paddles and steam—rotted snugly in
some muddy hole, near Kensington. And now, the steamboat which was
John Fitch's folly, has become Robert Fulton's fame; and the steam car,
and Magnetic Telegraph, which in Franklin's day, would have scared a
whole church of `common sense' men into spasms, are admitted to exist,
even by the most respectable newspapers.
`The Thing, we deem Improbable, my friend, is many a time just the
thing, about which we know precisely—nothing. Everything great in
thing in the world. Paul was mad when he spoke of Brotherhood among
men; Galileo mad wen he said the earth moved round the sun; Washington
mad when he said that he could defeat the tyranny of an Anointed
King.
`The rule that is good in history, science and religion, is also true in
literature. Mad Paradise Lost—mad Childe Harold—mad Zanone! All
three mad at the time of their publication, and their respective authors,
worthy of nothing so much as a dark cell, with shower baths and straight
jackets innumerable.
`If works like these have been called “mad!” and their authors assailed
as either harmless idiots or malignant demoniacs, how shall a poor author
like your humble friend, ever summon courage, to write—to print a
book like Paul Ardenheim?
`Now I do not claim for the present work, that the incidents, which it
embodies, occurred precisely, at the time and place, as they are set down;
but I do claim for these incidents, that they are true to the springs of human
action—true to the secret history of the heart of man—true to the feelings,
which sway mankind, in all ages and in every clime.
`At the same time these incidents are utterly improbable. They are
altogether impossible. The author, grown reckless of the critical stilleto,
out-herods—herod, out-horrors—horror; he prides himself on having
written “the most improbable book in the world.”
`The critics who expect to `use up' (in our own choice language) this
book and its author, will find all their thunder stolen before hand. Their
withering sarcasms about “Monk Lewis,” “Mrs. Radcliffe,” “works of
the French school,” etc. etc. will not avail them in this case. They will
have to invent a new vocabulary of slang, and become familiar, with something
more venemous even than their souls, in order to abuse a book,
which stares them in the face, with its motto—“THE MOST IMPROBABLE
BOOK IN THE WORLD.”
`The very title of the work will appal the writings of the small papers,
and shock into spasms, the portentous thugs of the Magazines. “The
Monk of the Wissahikon!” “This author is at his old tricks again; he
wrote the Monks of Monk-Hall, and now he writes the Monk of Wissahikon.
Will he never have done with monks? Who ever heard of Monks
on the Wissahikon, or if you come to that, what is the Wissahikon, but
an obscure mill-stream, hidden somewhere among big hills? Will he
never have done with horrors? He wrote the Legends of the Revolution—
we all know that the Revolution is past and gone—our people demand
something more practical than this worn-out matter of the Revolution, and
—all that sort o' thing. He crowds his pages with horror; skeletons;
corpses; daggers; skulls; Monk Lewis is a fool to him in the horrible,
and he distances poor Mrs. Radcliffe in the way of the monstrous. Besides
the licentious George Sand, the profligate Sue, and the unnatural Dumas.
Why does he not attempt something in a quiet vein,—founded on fact—
touched with unpretending pathos, and pointing to some impressive moral,
such as the immaculate purity of our banking institutions, or the spotless
integrity of the Corporation which built Girard College, or the mysterious
query, what ever became of the Funds of the United States Bank?”
`There, my friend, you have it—a critique ready mad and at the service
of any gentleman, connected with the critical department of our literature.
Or, should your taste, incline to those delectable productions, which
adorn the `literary' papers, under the head of `burlesque of Mr.—'S
style,' let me give you an idea, how this peculiar kind of literature is
elaborated. Take the purest thought that ever flowed from an author's
pen—break it into short paragraphs—array it in all the garniture of big
capitals and marks of admiration—slime it well, with some choice obscenity,
and your work is done. The author is burlesqued. He is put
down. These writers of `burlesques' are terrible fellows. I remember
one of the select band, who made capital fun out of the Death Scene of
Nathan Hale; he grew quite merry over the dying struggles of the Martyr
and Hero, and by a clever piece of wit, turned the last sigh, which
came from his livid lips, into a laughable joke? The peculiar wit of these
gentlemen is never so vivacious, as when it capers about, over the bones
of the dead—it is quite boisterous, in its laughter, when it mounts the
Altar of Religion, and slavers its obscenity there. It can take up any
passage of the Bible, and with its free, lively vein, write Divinity into a
jest, and mock the last hour of the Dying Redeemer, with a freedom of
manner and an elevation of tone, worthy of the thief, who scoffed his God,
and—died blaspheming. Indeed things like this, have been done, in more
than one case by “able critics”—“withering burlesque writers,” precisely
of the same class, as the respectable gentlemen who figure in certain of our
newspapers and magazines.'
`But why mention these persons,' I hear you exclaim—`Do you expect
to impress their natures, with any such ideas, as the purity of woman;
the good in the heart of universal man; the divine lesson of Brotherhood,
as displayed in the life of the Redeemer?'
`No, my friend. I expect nothing of the kind. And on reflection I am
sorry that I have blotted this page, with even the mention of these “common
stabbers.”—But now, let me turn to you, my friend, and thank you
for your generous sympathy with my labors. I have never seen your
face; have never taken you by the hand. And yet, as I sit in the loneliness
of my room, writing these closing words, I cannot,—even if I would
—repress the throb that pulsates at my heart, when I reflect, that you are
my friend. A friend neither bought with money, nor won by baseness;
but gathered to my heart, by pages like these, which I now send forth to
slander, or by `the light of a candle held in the skeleton hand of Poverty,'
but which still I hope, are true to the best instincts of humanity.—And
so, our familiar talk is over, and I once more glance into the pages of the
Ancient Record, where I chronicled, an incident of some interest in the
life of the Monk of Wissahikon:—
“One night, in a miserable garret, hidden away in some obscure faubourg
of the great city of Paris, there sat a lonely student, keeping the
vigil of his thought, and even as he gazed with his vacant eyes, upon the
flame of the expiring candle, tracing absently upon a sheet of paper, his
unknown name, `Maximilien Robespierre.' And even as he sat there,
so sad and lonely, with half-formed thought, glimmering in his vacant
glance, there appeared to him a stranger, whose face was impressed with
a Sorrow unutterable. And he took the lonely youth by the hand, and
told him of his Future, and pointed him to a path, which covered with
blood, and strewn with crowns and thornes, ended at the foot of the Guillotine.
`This path you will walk—yonder King you will kill—and at
last your stern mission accomplished, you will die abhorred upon your
own Guillotine.' And the Boy-Student trembled at the prophecy of the
unknown, who passed from the place ere his last word, had ceased to
echo, but left the record of his name, beneath the name already written.
The names together read thus—`Maximilien Robespierre * * * `Paul
Ardemheim.”'
| Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |