Authorship: a Tale

Authorship: A Tale John Neal Authorship: A Tale Table of Contents Authorship: A Tale...................................................................................................................................................1 John Neal........................................................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I...................................................................................................................................................1 Footnotes........................................................................................................................................................5 CHAPTER II..................................................................................................................................................5 Footnotes........................................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER III................................................................................................................................................9 Footnotes......................................................................................................................................................12 CHAPTER IV..............................................................................................................................................12 Footnotes......................................................................................................................................................17 CHAPTER V................................................................................................................................................17 CHAPTER VI..............................................................................................................................................21 Footnotes......................................................................................................................................................28 CHAPTER VIII............................................................................................................................................28 Footnotes......................................................................................................................................................33 CHAPTER IX..............................................................................................................................................33 CHAPTER X................................................................................................................................................40 CHAPTER XI..............................................................................................................................................48 CHAPTER XII.............................................................................................................................................56 CHAPTER XIII............................................................................................................................................61 CHAPTER XIV...........................................................................................................................................71 Footnotes......................................................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER XV.............................................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER XVI...........................................................................................................................................84 CHAPTER XVII..........................................................................................................................................90 CHAPTER XVIII.........................................................................................................................................95 CHAPTER XIX.........................................................................................................................................102 Footnotes....................................................................................................................................................109 CHAPTER XX...........................................................................................................................................109 CHAPTER XXI.........................................................................................................................................120 CHAPTER XXII........................................................................................................................................127 CHAPTER XXIII.......................................................................................................................................134 i Authorship: A Tale John Neal This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online. http://www.blackmask.com • CHAPTER I. • CHAPTER II. • CHAPTER III. • CHAPTER IV. • CHAPTER V. • CHAPTER VI. • CHAPTER VIII. • CHAPTER IX. • CHAPTER X. • CHAPTER XI. • CHAPTER XII. • CHAPTER XIII. • CHAPTER XIV. • CHAPTER XV. • CHAPTER XVI. • CHAPTER XVII. • CHAPTER XVIII. • CHAPTER XIX. • CHAPTER XX. • CHAPTER XXI. • CHAPTER XXII. • CHAPTER XXIII. AUTHORSHIP, A TALE. BY A NEW ENGLANDER OVER−SEA. CHAPTER I. YANKEE IN WESTMINSTER−ABBEY: FAITHFUL ACCOUNT OF THE WONDERS THERE... ADVENTURE. I must be allowed to tell my story in my own way; and though I speak in the first person, I hope to have it attributed to the true causea desire to be understood. I left America and went to England, not to see Westminster−Abbey, nor any other `part of the British−Constitution,' whatever the Quarterly−Review may suppose,1 but in the hope of seeing much there, that I hope never to see in America, much that I do hope to see here, and much that I should have looked upon, wherever I might see it, with more joy and a deeper emotion I dare say, than I ever yet felt or ever shall feel at the sight of abbeys and cathedrals, churches and castles, green with age though they be, rocking to the northern blast, or very dark with the shadows of centuries. Not that I did not go up to Westminster−Abbeythe Sepulchre of Authorship: A Tale 1 Authorship: A Tale Kingswith a sort of awe, which, republican though I was, I could not well get the better of: nor do I mean to say that I ever was, or that I ever hope to be, so reasonable as to find just what your over−reasonable creature1 would look forand no morein the ruins of such a placethe wreck of what in the day of its power was only the strong−hold of Superstition, or a part of the huge outworks of Tyranny. But if I had perceived the truth; if I had gone back to that age, when the very foundations of military and religious power were laid in Europe, where would have been the evil, where the mischief I pray you, of that awe which I suffered to creep over me like the penumbra of a great eclipse happening at noon−day in the depth of summer? Why may not the strong holds of Superstition or the outworks of Tyranny (if dilapidated) be worth a voyage over sea, to the poet or the dreamer, to the artist or the philosopher, to the man or the statesman? People may say what they please; but though I was not boy enough to go a thousand leagues, nor boy enough to talk as if I thought it worth while for another to go so far, merely to get a peep at Westminster−Abbeyto say nothing of Magna−Charta and the House−of−Lordsstill, when I had arrived there, I could not overlook what I saw before me, nor outrage the spirit of the place by considering what must have been the substance of that power, the very type and shadow of which six hundred years after the glory had departed from it, was awful to the heart, and oppressive to the mind of man. Nor was I fool enough either to put off my shoes, or to say that I felt as if I should put them off, or as if it were sacrilege to walk otherwise than barefooted, when I drew near the arched door−waythe holy spot, where you pay sixpence to a man with a stick, for leave to run by the poet's cornera marble congress of `Gods and Godlike men,' whose mighty ashes after all, are not in Westminster−Abbey, but somewhere in the depths of the sea, or in the far parts of the earth. But still, though I was not blockhead enough either to behave or to talk as it would appear to be the fashion for the people who have strayed away from the woods and waters of America to behave and talk, when they have got fairly ashore in the heart of Westminster−Abbeyespecially if they were landed at the custom−house, or shipped to the care of S. W. or B. B. & Co.I could not laugh at every thing I saw, though much of it was very laughable; nor could I philosophize over the origin of what was before me, and about me, and above me, till I forgot where I was, and had no pleasure in what I saw; nor behold without emotion the barbarous beauty that overshadowed meso superior to the classical beauty that other men love to talk about, or the savage pomp that uprose on every side of me, as with a spring, and over−arched my way, and shut in my view whithersoever I went, like ano, not like a spider−net sky of solid stone, nor a carved or fretted sky, nor a firmament of tracery, but very much like a roof built of oak timber, wrought with the chisel and hewed with the axe

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