Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions

The Copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If electronic transmission of reserve material is used for purposes in excess of what constitutes "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. The Purloined Poe Lacan, Derrida & Psychoanalytic Reading

Edited by john P. Muller & William]. Richardson

Thejohns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London © I988 The Johns Hopkins University Press Preface All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ONE Poe and Lacan

The Johns Hopkins University Press Thomas 0!/ive Mabbott, Tel 70I West 40th Street Letter," with Notes Baltimore Maryland 2 I 2 I I The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London 2 jacques Lacan, Seminar on translated by Jeffrey Mehlffk The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri- can National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for 3 Lacan's Seminar on "The I Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39-48-I984. Overview Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 87-2760 Lacan's Seminar on "The I ISBN o-8oi8-3292-6 4 ISBN o-8oi8-3293-4 pbk the Text

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data will be found on the last page 5 Lacan's Seminar on "The· of this book. to the Text

TWO On Psychoanalytic Readir 6 Marie Bonaparte, Selectior of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psyc

v r of "The Purloined Letter,'' with Notes

THOMAS 0LLIVE

MABBOTT

Poe wrote]. R. Lowell on July 2, I844, that "'The Purloined Letter,' forthcoming in 'The Gift' is perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocina- tion." Many judicious critics have agreed, some even considering it the best of all Poe's stories. Its great merit lies in the fascination of the purely intellectual plot and in the absence of the sensational. No exact source for Poe's plot has been pointed out, but Poe remarked on not seeking truth in a well in his prefatory "Letter to Mr.--" in Poems (I 8 3 I); in a review of Alexander Slidell's An American in England in the Southern Literary Messenger, February I836; and in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," at note 29 (Mabbott I978, 2: 572). The story was apparently hastily completed for the annual in which it was first printed. On May 3 I, I844, Poe wrote Edward L. Carey, a publisher, requesting a proof, because "the MS had many interlineations and erasures" -whereas most of his printer's copy was carefully prepared and unusually clean. (The untidy condition referred to is paralleled in the

Reprinted by permission of the publishers from Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume III: Tales and Sketches r843-I849, Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1978 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

3 4 ThomaJ 0/live Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" 5 case of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," but in no other surviving to the sinister phrase used contemptuously to describe the treaty broken manuscript of a Poe story. The May 3 I letter was printed in the first in I9I4 by the invasion of Belgium that began the First World War. See supplement of Ostrom's Letters of Edgar Allan Poe[see American Literature, C. P. Cambiaire, ThelnfluenceofEdgarAllanPoeinFrance[I927, 286}, for November I952}.) The revision for the publication of "The Purloined a synopsis of the literature on this curious subject.) Although some of the Letter" in the Tales of I845 was moderate but skillful, and the story was ideas are from books in which Poe was interested and though some of the hardly changed at all in the J. Lorimer Graham copy. characters are based on real people, it goes without saying that the real The tale was reprinted in Chambers' Edinburgh journal ofNovember 30, queen of France, Marie Amelie, was not portrayed. I844, with the following introduction:

The Gift is an American annual of great typographical elegance, and TEXTS embellished with many beautiful engravings. It contains an article, which, for several reasons, appears to us so remarkable, that we leave aside several effusions of our ordinary contributors in order to make room (A) The Gift: A Christmas, New Year, and Birthday Present, I845 (Sep- for an abridgment of it. The writer, Mr. Edgar A. Poe, is evidently an tember I844): 4I-6I; (B) Tales (I845), 200-2I8; (C) J. Lorimer acute observer of mental phenomena; and we have to thank him for one of Graham copy of Tales, with manuscript changes of 1849; (D) Works the aptest illustrations which could well be conceived, of that curious (1850), I:262-8o. play of two minds, in which one person, let us call him A, guesses what The J. Lorimer Graham copy of the Tales (C) is followed. Griswold's another, B, will do, judging that B will adopt a particular line of policy version (D) is merely a reprint of an unrevised copy of the Tales (B) and has to circumvent A. no independent authority; it introduces three typographical errors. Some students have believed that the abridgment, which is well done, was by the author, but Poe's failure to adopt the version in I845 argues that the changes were unauthorized. (A separate pamphlet reprint of the Reprints abridged text was issued in London in an edition of 325 copies in I93I, with an introduction by Dr. Jacob Schwarz, who wished to regard the Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, November 30, 1844, abridged from The Edinburgh version as the earliest-and omitted Chambers's introduc- Gift. The abridgment was copied by: Littell's Living Age(Boston), January tion! Actually, The Gift was published in the fall of I844-Wiley and r8, I84 5; the Spirit of the Times (Philadelphia), January 20 and 22, 184 5; Putnam advertised it for sale in the New- York Daily Tribune for September and the New York Weekly News, January 25, 1845, labeled "Chambers' 24-and two or three weeks was ample time for copies to reach journal via Littell's Living Age" (for the last, see G. Thomas Tanselle, Edinburgh.) Publications of the Bibliographical Society of America, second quarter 1962). Poe knew of the immediate success of his story abroad. In reviewing Poe's Tales in his Aristidean for October I845, Dr. English, who had certainly discussed them with the author, wrote: "There is much made of nothing in 'The Purloined Letter,' -the story of which is simple; but the reasoning is remarkably clear, and directed solely to the required end. It first appeared in the 'Gift,' and was thence copied into Chambers' 'Edin- burgh Journal,' as a most notable production." An unsigned translation, "Une lettre volee," was published in the Paris Magasin Pittoresque of August I 84 5, and the story became popular in France. (Later on, a play founded on J,>oe'sstory by Victorien Sardou, Les pattes de mouche[I86o}, translated as A Scrap of Paper[I86I}, gave rise 'r'o- , .., \-0 "" Q 1 TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" 7 . "e-" ce

.. """"__, ..,,u·-.- , ..,_..,_.,. • IO Thomas 0//ive Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" II

from their master's apartment,g and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a '.secret' readily made drunk. 6 I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed, is a certain amount of bulk-of space-to be accounted for in every during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not ransacking the D-- Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to mention a After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we.probed great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the search with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we v until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than removed the tops." "- myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and corner of the "Why so?" premises in which it is possible that the paper can be concealed." "Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of oj "But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then ':1 v in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have con- the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top +..Jl ,_ cealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?" replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same "This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar condition way." ·.f' '-) " of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D-- is "But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked. {} to be involved, would render the instant availability of the docu- "By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of \: \ ment-its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice-a cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to point of nearly equal importance with its possession." proceed without noise." "Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I. "But you could not have removed-you could not have taken to pieces "That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin. all articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a "True," I observed; "the paper is clearly then upon the premises. As deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that as out thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large knitting- of the question." needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for "Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?" footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own inspection." "Certainly not; but we did better-we examined the rungs of every "You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D--, I chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated these furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any waylayings, as a matter of course." traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it instant- "Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he's a poet, which I take to ly.h A single grain of gimlet-dust,i for example, would have been as [_ be only one remove from a fool."7 obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the glueing-any unusual gaping in "True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meer- the joints-would have sufficed to insure detection." schaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggere1 myself." "I presumei you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the you detail," I said, "the particulars of your search.:3 plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the "Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every where. I have curtains and carpets." had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room by "That of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing hinstanter. (A) 'gimlet-dust, or saw-dust, (A) SetJ-Y"vreJ o\(0. · i"J presume/" Of course (A) I2 Thomas 0!/ive Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER I3 divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so "I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square would you advise me to do?" inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately Pro make a thorough re-search of the premises.:') adjoining, with the microscope, as before." ""that is absolutely needless," replied G-. "I am not more sure "The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed; "you must have had a great that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel." deal of trouble." "I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of "We had; but the reward offered is prodigious." course, an accurate description of the letter?" "You include the grounds about the houses?" "Oh yes!" -And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book, "All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it of the external appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing undisturbed. "k the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely "You looked among D--'s papers, of course, and into the books of depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before. the library?" In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us "Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting into some ordinary conversation. At length I said,- ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our "Well, but G--, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have police officers. 9 We also measured the thickness of every book-cover, with at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each' the most jealous Minister?" scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently med- "Confound him, say !-yes; I made the re-examination, however, as dled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have Dupin suggested-but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be." escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the "How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin. binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with the needles." "Why, a very great deal-a very liberal reward-I don't like to say "You explored the floors beneath the carpets?" how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn't mind "Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could with the microscope." obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more "And the paper on the walls?" importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were "Yes." trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done." "You looked into the cellars?" "Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffsn of his meer- "We did."rn schaum, "I really-think, G--, you have not exerted yourself-to "Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter the utmost in this matter. You might-do a little more, I think, eh?" is not upon the premises, as you suppose." "How?-in what way?" "Why-puff, puff-you might-puff, puff-employ counsel in the matter, eh?-puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell of kAfter this are two additional paragraphs: Abernethy?" "And the roofs?" "No; hang Abernethy!" "We surveyed every inch of the external surface, and probed carefully beneath every "To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain tile." (A) 1them (A) m"We did."/"We did; and, as time and labour were no objects, we dug up every one of them co the depth of four feet." (A) nwhich (D) misprint 14 Thomas 0//ive Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" 15 rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a medical opinion. 10 Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversa- question, have found it.'' tion in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician, I merely laughed-but he seemed quite serious in all that he said. of an imaginary individual. "The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and "'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case, and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?' to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the -·------"'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.'" Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, 11 to which he forcibly adapts his "But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly willing to But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty thousand francso to matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew any one who would aid me in the matter." one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of "In that case,'' replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount men- is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these tioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter." toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunderstricken. guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking in- whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some credulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasure- from their sockets; then, apparent! y recovering himself in some measure, ment of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant sim- he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up pleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and loses; but upon the to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket- second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, "the simpleton had them book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to Prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd;- with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremonious- he would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I ly from the room and from the house, without having uttered aP syllable guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check. first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations. simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple "The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way. a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the will therefore guess even;'-he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky,'-what, G- detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel in its last analysis, is it?" 0--, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investi- "It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect with gation-so far as his labors extended.'' that of his

0 francs, every centime of it, (A) possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see Pa solitary (A) what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or r6 Thomas 0/live Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" I7

correspond with the expression:J2 This response of the schoolboy lies at •presumable and presumed;• and thus its discovery depends, not at all the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and Rochefoucault,q to La Bruyere,< to Machiavelli, and to Campanella." 13 determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance-or, "And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with that of what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is • his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the accuracy of magnitude-the qualities in question have never been known to fail. with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured." You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the "For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and the purloined letter been hidden any where within the limits of the Prefect's Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, default of this identifica- examination-in other words, had the principle of its concealment been by ill-admeasurement, ;ather through non-ad- comprehended within the principles of the Prefect-its discovery would m-;asurement, ofi:heintdlect with which they are engaged. They consid- have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, howev- e.r only theifOwn ideas of ingenuity; and, "rn-searching for anything er, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it. in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired They are right in this much-that their own ingenuity is a faithful renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels;14 and he is representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the individual merely guilty of a non distributio medii15 in thence inferring that all poets felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of are fools." course. This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually "But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I know; when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investiga- and both have attained reputation in letters. The Minister I believe has tions; at best, when -urged by some unusual emergency-by s-ome ex- written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician, traordinary-reward-=-i:hey -extend-or-exaggcratetneiroid modes of prac- and no poet." tice, witho-ui:-toucfilll.ii:fieir pr!ncipTeS:What, for"example, in this case of "You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and mathe- D---, has been theprinciple of action? What is all this matician, he would reason well;u as mere mathematician, he could not boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the micro- have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the scope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square Prefect." inches-what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one "You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been contra- principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of dicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at naught the notions regarding human ingenuity, the Prefect, in the long well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long beenv routine of his duty, has been you not see he has taken it regarded as the reason par excellence." ,\\1 for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter,-not exactly in a "'II ya aparier,' "w replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, "'que toute gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg-but, at least, in some out-of-the-way idee publique, toute convention refue, est une sottise, car elle a convenuxau plus .g.J hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge grand nombre.'y16 The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best pS a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leJl And do you to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and which is none -\ not see also, that such recherches•nooks for concealment are adapted only the less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better \ or or mary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; l r, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed-a ' .. 'presumed and presumable; (A) \ \.dis in this recherc.bi..manner,-is, in the very first instance, uwell; as poet, profoundly; (A) · 1cv hlc\f -tni v"qS i 0 •long been/been long (A) wparier,· (A, B, C, D) accent deleted editorially X qJn all texts p \a t.f 'IJIIf;r{} •conventlt (A, B, C, D) correctededitorially B, C, D) correctededitorially fi.P . \de \S" \f (A) VTv hI C n - YThis sentencenot italicized (A) '-' lj 18 Thomas 0/live Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER I9

cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into applica- together equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, tion to algebra. The French are the originators of this particular decep- get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will tion; but if a term is of any importance-if words derive any value from endeavor to knock you down. applicability-then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as, in "I mean to say,'' continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last Latin 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' 'religion,' or 'homines honesti,' a observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a mathemati- setofhonorablemen."17 c:e-Ce_rtY\Cj"' \q_m(.t.-1"'\, cian, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving me this - fYou have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the \k,tkt· check.aa I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my gebraists of Paris; but proceed." 18 measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circum- "I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is stances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as cultivated in other abstractly logical. I dis- a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be aware of pure, In eaiiceaby math- the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have failed to antici- ematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is pate-and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate-the merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I re- error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, flected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences are abstract or general this error is so egregious that I am from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathe- success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search matical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of rel:iiiOil- to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to in regard to morais, for which G--, in fact, did finally arrive-the conviction that the letter example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue that was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, gated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the the consideration of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value, invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles concealed-! have not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the only truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues, ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an absolutely to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as general applicability-as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of error, and to the microscopes of the Prefect.['saw, in fine, that he would be when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the realities.'19 With the algebraists,z however, who are Pagans themselves, Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the so very self-evident.:J brains. In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who "Yes,'' .said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold would have fallen into convulsions." it as a point of his faith that x2 + px was absolutely and unconditionally "The material world,'' continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you anai7>gies to the Immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given please, that you believe occasions may occur where x 2 + px is not al-

.. After this Had he been no more than a poet, I think it probable that he would have foiled zaJgebraist, (A) us all. (A) 20 Thomas Ollive Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER 21

to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to "Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green specta- strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The cles,22 and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the Ministerial principle of the vis inertiae,2o for example,bb seems to be identical in hotel. I found at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as .\ ,....,, r "-. /!< D-- physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its the most really energetic human being now alive-but that is only when subsequent momentumccis commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in nobody sees him. the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more "To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of thoroughly surveyed thedd apartment, while seemingly intent only upon hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever the conversation of my host. noticed which of the street signs, over the shop-doors, are the most "I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he sat, attractive of attention?" and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and other "I have never given the matter a thought," I said. papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here, "There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite map. One party playing requires another to find a given word-the name particular suspicion. of town, river, state or empire-any word, in short, upon the motley and "At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a dirty embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered blue ribbonee from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle-as if a being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too D-- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or female hand, to D--, the minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the upperff divisions probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter immedi- of the rack. ately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best preventing any "No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be that of portion of that world from perceiving it.21 which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance radically "But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminat- different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute a ing ingenuity of D--; upon the fact that the document must always description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D-- cipher; have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S--- family. decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden within Here, the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and feminine; there the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search-the more satisfied I be- the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and came that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to the compre- decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the hensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all. radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled

bbexample, with the amount of momentum proportionate with it and consequent upon it, ddthe whole (A, B, D) (A) ••riband, (A) cc;mpetuJ (A) ffuppermost (A, B, D) 22 Thomas 0/live Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" 23 and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade habits of 0--, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay." into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together "But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a fac- with the hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have seized it every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to openly, and departed?" which I have previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly cor- "0--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. roborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to suspect. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I "I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a made the wild attempt you suggest, I mightkk never have left the Minis- most animated discussion with the Minister, ongg a topic which I knew terial presence alive. The good people of Paris mightll have heard of me no well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You know my riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power. upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have She has now him in hers;mm since, being unaware that the letter is not in entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same well to talk about the facilis descensusAverni;24 but in all kinds of climb- creases or edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery was ing, as Catalaninn said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, come down. 25 In the present instance I have no sympathy-at least no inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed.23 I bade the Minister good morn- pity-for him who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum,26 an un- ing, and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the principled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well table. to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her "The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite whom the Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is reduced to opening eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged, the letter which I left for him in the card-rack." however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath "How? did you put any thing particular in it?" the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, "Why-it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank- and the shoutings of ahh mob. D-- rushed to a casement, threw it that would have been insulting. D--, 00 at Vienna once, did mean evil open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, took turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simi/eii (so far as So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the regards externals)ii which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings;ii person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clue. imitating the D-- cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of bread. the blank sheet the words- "The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic --UnPP dessein si funeste, behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of S'il n'est digne est digne de Thyeste. women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atree.' "27 had gone, D-- came from the window, whither I had followed him

kkshould (A) 11would (A) 8Bupon (A, B, D) hha terrified (A, B, D) mmhers;/hers-(A, B, D) nnCatalini (A) misprint '' . . . "Omitted (A) iilodgings;/lodgings-(A, B, D) 00 To be sure, D--, (A) PP--Un/" '-- --Un (B, D) • "!! T E X T 0 F .. T R L 0 I N T E R " 25 24 Thomas 01/ive Mabbott

similitude with theirs and then observed what emotions rose within his heart to NOTES play up, as it were, to that expression of countenance; in the same manner, if we dispose our interests, and wishes, which may be called the features of feeling, into a conformity with those of others, we shall find that their thoughts and Motto: The Latin quotation ascribed to Seneca has not been located. Poe used it counsels start naturally up in our mind. first in the I 84 3 version of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," near the end of the tale, but he omitted it in later texts. It means "Nothing is more hateful to "The Due de L'Omelette" contains references to irs hero's use of physiognomy. wisdom than too much cunning." Compare Dupin's comment: "The Parisian I 3. Poe's spelling (Rochefoucault) for Franc;ois de Ia Rochefoucauld (I 6 30- police, so much extolled for acumen, are cunning but no more." 8o) is found in the first edition of his maxims listed in the British Museum 1. A meerschaum pipe is also mentioned in "The Light-House." Catalogue as carrying the author's name on the title page: Rejlexionesou sentenceset 2. Dupin lived up three flights of stairs, on what we call the fourth floor. The maximes morales de Monsieur de Ia Rochefoucault ... (Amsterdam, I705); in Isaac name of the street is imaginary, as are a number of the street names in Poe's other D'Israeli's Curiosities ofLiterature, so frequently used by Poe; and in The Duke de Ia Dupin stories. Rochefoucault'sMaxims and Moral Reflections(New York: G. and C. Carvill, I835), 3· The chief of police in Paris from I83 I to I836 was Henri-Joseph Gisquet, which was apparently based on an "improved edition" (with the same spelling) who died in February I866. issued in Edinburgh in I796. "La Bougive," which I have emended to La 4· Compare Politian 2.3-4, "I shall die, Castiglione, I shall die ... of Bruyere, is undoubtedly a printer's error, from a misreading of Poe's manuscript. laughing!" Poe spelled the name correctly in crediting the motto for "The Man of the Crowd" 5. Hotel means mansion or town residence; the word is capitalized later and in his review of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes(SLM, March I836), where he also when used in connection with the owner's name. mentioned Rochefoucaulr. Machiavelli was mentioned in Satanic company in 6. Compare getting rid of the servants in "The Cask of Amontillado." "Bon-Bon," along with Rochefoucault and Seneca in the introduction to 7. See Midsummer Night's Dream, 5. I. 7-8, "The lunatic, the lover, and the "Pinakidia" (SLM, August I836, reworked in "Marginalia," no. 46, Democratic poet I Are of imagination all compact." Review, December I844, 58 I); with Campanella was represented on the book- 8. The method of search described may come from some account of Napo- shelves of the House of Usher (Burton's Magazine, September I839); and with leon's detective Vidocq. Rochefoucault was mentioned in a review ofT he Canons ofGood Breeding (Burton's, 9· In a letter of August 28, I849, Poe instructed Mrs. Clemm how to excuse November I839). the loss of a drawing of Elmira Shelton: "Just copy the following words in your I4. In "Lionizing" we read that "Sir Positive Paradox ... observed that all letter: I ... cannot find it anywhere. I took down all the books and shook them fools were philosophers, and that all philosophers were fools." one by one." I 5. Non distributio medii-the fallacy of the undistributed middle-is ignor- IO. The great British surgeon John Abernethy (1764- I83 I) was very gruff, ing the fact that if all A's are B's, all B's may nor necessarily be A's. but Dupin's story is told about another surgeon, Sir Isaac Pennington (I745- I6. Poe quotes from the French cynic Sebastien-Roch Nicolas, called Cham- I8q), at p. 3 I of Nuts to Crack (Philadelphia, I835), a jest book Poe reviewed in fort (1740-94), Maximes et pensees, 2:{2: "It is safe to wager that every idea that is the Southern Literary Messenger [hereafter cited as SLM}, December I835· public property, every accepted convention, is a bit of stupidity, for it has suited I I. Procrustean bed-rigorous, ruthless, and arbitrary limits-derived the majority." Poe had already used the French quotation in reviewing]. P. from Procrustes, a legendary Attic robber, slain by Theseus, who fitted his Robertson's Solomon Seesaw in Burton's, September I839, Writings of Charles victims to a bed by stretching the short and cutting the feet off the tall. Sprague in Graham's, May I84I, and Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems in I 2. The system of mind reading used by the schoolboy has long been at- Graham's, March I842; he used it again later in "Marginalia," no. 250 (SLM, tributed to Tommaso Campanella. An account of how he uncovered his in- June r 849, 338). quisitor's thoughts appears in the Voyageto the Moon of Cyrano de Bergerac (I6I9- I 7. In classical Latin ambitus means seeking office, religio is superstition, and 55), a work referred to in Poe's "Hans Phaall." [S. L. Varnado, in Poe Newsletter, homines honesti is Cicero's term for men of his party. Poe also referred to religio in October I968, quotes a description by Edmund Burke of Campanella's system.} the first version of "Metzengerstein" and in "Marginalia," no. q6 (Graham's, Horace Binney Wallace, in Stanley (I838), a book Poe drew on frequently, said November I846, 246). (2:242): I8. ]. ]. Cohane, in his book list, April I859 (item 86, catalogue 30), pointed out that Poe's source for Dupin's argument in the following paragraph is It was remarked by the ingenious Campanella that when he wished to discover Horace Binney Wallace's novel Stanley (cited in no. I 2 above), I :206-8: the leading characteristics of any one whom he saw, he arranged his features into a 26 Thomas 0/live Mabbott TEXT OF "THE PURLOINED LETTER" 27

As a means . . . of cultivating the intellect . . . I consider mathematics as a 26. "A terrifying monster" is from the Aeneid 3.658 and is also quoted in study of little value as compared with moral logic. ... The axioms of mathe- "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fecher." matics are not axioms of general truth; they are derived from the consideration of 27. The quotation, "So baleful a plan, if unworthy of Atreus, is worthy of form and quantity, and it does nor follow that what is true ofform and quantity is Thyestes," comes from A tree et Thyeste (1707), 5-4· I 3-15, by Prosper-Jolyot de true of moral principles or of human motives .... In morals, things are consid- ered and ..:ompared by their categories or qualities, whereof each thing has many, Crebillon (I674-I762). Poe had used it previously in a review of Thomas Camp- according to the view and purpose in reference to which the thing is looked at; bell's Life of Petrarch in Graham's Magazine, September 184 r, and earlier had what is affirmed of a thing in contemplation of one category is not true of it in quoted Crebillon's Xerxes in the motto to "Epimanes" and referred to the play in respect of another, nor true in respect of that category in reference to all consid- "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." A brief comment on Crebillon is quoted in erations Thus, the position, that two things being equal to a third are .... "Pinakidia," no. I 29 (SLM, August !836, 580) and repeated in "Marginalia," equal to one another, may be true universally if we define "equal" with absolute strictness, but, in use, will constantly lead to the logical fallacy of an un- no. 24 (Democratic Review, November I844, 488). distributed middle term; and if you will examine the logic of a mathematician you will find the error of a non-distributed medii very often committed. Another mathematical axiom which is not true in the scope of general reason is, that all the parts taken together are equal to the whole. This is not always true of physical science, and is generally false in morals. It is not true in chymical combination, and the instinct of a chymist's mind would be to deny the axiom; it is not necessarily true that if two motives separately have given values, these motives united will have a value equal to their sum .... I might name to you many other principles of mathematical science which are not true beyond the boundaries of that science. In truth, mathematics is a composite science ... and not a funda- mental exhibition of reason; it is logicapplied to the sciencesof form and quantity. ... There is danger that the mathematician will mistake the axioms of his science for the principles of reason, and will apply universally what is true only of a particu- lar system.

19. The remark of Jacob Bryant comes from A New System of Ancient My- thology, 3d ed. (1807), 2:173. Poe referred to it in "Pinakidia," no. 70 (SLM, August 1836, 577), and used it again in Eureka. 20. Vis inertiae is the force of inertia. 2 I. Compare: "Just as the moderately-sized shop-signs are better adapted to their object than those which are Brobdignagian, so, in at least three cases out of five, is a fact or a reason overlooked solely on account of being excessively obvious. It is almost impossible to see a thing that is immediately beneath one's nose" ("Does the Drama of the Day Deserve Support'" in Evening Mirror, January 9, and Weekly Mirror, January 18, I845). 22. Green spectacles are mentioned also in "The Folio Club," "Bon-Bon," and "The Mystery of Marie Roger." 23. The letter was on an old-fashioned four-page sheet, with text on the first and address on the last page, and so could be turned inside out. The minister erred in using his own seal. 24. Facilis descensusAverno- "The descent to Hades is easy" -comes from Vergil Aeneid 6. I 26. Poe used the Latin words earlier in a criticism of Miss Sedgwick's Tales and Sketches in SLM, January I836. 25. Where the remark of Angelica Catalani (I779-I849), Italian opera star and teacher, is recorded is not known. Poe used her name punningly in "A Decided Loss."