English 3 & 3 Honors Summer Reading

Directions: Before beginning the 2021-22 year, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the following two texts ("The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau). These texts will be featured in Units 2 and 3 of English 3 Honors. Though they are not thematically related and are a part of two separate units, they are two of the lengthier reading selections near the start of the year.

You do not need to complete any assignments with the texts below. Name: Class:

The Fall of the House of Usher

By Edgar Allan Poe 1839

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American author, poet, and literary critic, known for his macabre and Gothic works. In this short story, an unnamed narrator visits an old friend and finds a tale of horror within the decaying manor. As you read, take notes on Poe’s construction of mood and setting, and how these devices contribute to the theme of the piece.

Son coeur est un luth suspendu;

Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.1

— De Béranger.

"Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination" by Arthur Rackham is in the public domain.

1. Epigraph: “His heart is a suspended lute [a type of string instrument]; / Which resonates as soon as touched.” 1 [1] During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation 2 more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium —the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a 3 black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree- stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, 4 Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it the apparent heart that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.

2. Opium is a narcotic drug obtained from immature opium poppy seeds, particularly popular (or despised, depending) in Europe in the 1700s through the early 1900s. 3. Tarn (noun) a small steep-banked lake or pond 4. Boon (adjective) close or intimate 2 Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of 5 exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other—it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral 6 issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal 7 appellation of the “House of Usher”—an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment—that of looking down within the tarn–had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition—for why should I not so term it?—served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy—a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity—an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

[5] Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinising observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

5. Munificient (adjective) characterized by great generosity 6. Patrimony (noun) an estate inherited from one's father 7. Appellation (noun) an identifying name or title 3 Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of 8 the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of 9 the ennuyé man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with 10 difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my 11 early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar 12 formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.

8. Phantasmagoric (adjective) describing a bizarre or fantastic combination 9. Ennuyé (adjective) affected with weariness or boredom 10. Wan (adjective) pale, sickly pale 11. Cadaverousness (noun) state or resembling a corpse 12. Want (noun) lack 4 In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.

[10] It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for long years—his last and only relative on earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread—and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.

5 The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting 13 away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.

[15] For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavours to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a 14 15 sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my cars. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why;—from these 16 paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least—in the circumstances then surrounding me—there arose out of the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of 17 which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendour.

13. Cataleptical (adjective) referring to a nervous condition characterized by muscular rigidity and fixity of posture regardless of external stimuli, as well as decreased sensitivity to pain 14. Sulphureous (adjective) of, relating to, or containing sulfur/the fires of hell 15. Dirge (noun) a mournful piece of music, often intended to accompany funeral or memorial rites 16. Educe (verb) to bring out; to deduce 17. Henry Fuseli was a Swiss painter whose works often depicted the supernatural. 6 I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled “The Haunted Palace,” ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:

I.

In the greenest of our valleys,

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace—

Radiant palace—reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion—

It stood there!

18 19 Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair.

II.

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow;

(This—all this—was in the olden

Time long ago)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

18. Seraph (noun) an order of angels 19. Pinion (noun) the terminal section of a bird's wing; flight feathers 7 A winged odour went away.

III.

Wanderers in that happy valley

Through two luminous windows saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne, where sitting

20 (Porphyrogene! )

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

V.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

20. Porphyrogene (noun) a son born after the accession of his father to the throne (literally “one born in the purple”) 8 (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)

And, round about his home, the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

VI.

And travellers now within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows, see

Vast forms that move fantastically

To a discordant melody;

While, like a rapid ghastly river,

Through the pale door,

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh—but smile no more.

I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher’s which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for other men have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, 21 22 was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had 23 been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones—in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around—above all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence—the evidence of the sentience—was to be seen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him—what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.

21. Sentience (noun) the ability or consciousness to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively 22. Vegetable (adjective) unresponsive or non-living 9 [20] Our books—the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the 24 invalid —were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favourite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten church—the Vigilae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, 25 apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon —keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead—for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house.

23. Collocation (noun) the act or result of placing/arranging together 24. Invalid (noun) a person made weak or disabled by illness or injury 25. Donjon (noun) the great tower or innermost keep of a castle 10 And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary 26 courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

[25] It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch—while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of 27 a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremour gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there 28 sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened—I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me—to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His air appalled me—but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence—”you have not then seen it?—but, stay! you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to 29 one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

26. Vagary (noun) an erratic action or notion 27. Tempest (noun) a storm 28. Incubus (noun) an evil spirit that lies on people in their sleep—often depicted deriving a victim’s life-force through sexual intercourse; a nightmare 29. Casement (noun) a window with a sash that opens at hinges at the side 11 The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this—yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars—nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapour, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.

“You must not—you shall not behold this!” said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. “These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not 30 uncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement;—the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances. I will read, and you shall listen;—and so we will pass away this terrible night together.”

[30] The antique volume which I had taken up was the “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favourite of Usher’s more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative 31 prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild over-strained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:

32 “And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the forest.”

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story:

30. Miasma (noun) a heavily vaporous atmosphere (i.e. fog), once thought to carry disease 31. Prolixity (noun) boring verbosity, long-windedness 32. Doughty (adjective) valiant, brave 12 “But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten—

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

[35] And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.”

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of the second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanour. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast—yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea—for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:

“And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.”

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver—I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words.

13 [40] “Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago—yet I dared not—I dared not speak! And now—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—the breaking of the hermit’s door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangour of the shield! —say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!” —here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out 33 his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul— “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!”

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell—the huge antique pannels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust—but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe (1839) is in the public domain.

Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

33. "Without" meaning "outside of" 14

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 357 selves. But it is not the less necessary for this ; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy C'IN%II . DISOBEDIENCE that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how success- HEARTILY accept the motto, "That government is fully men can be imposed on, even impose on them- best which governs least ; " and I should like to see it selves, for their own advantage . It is excellent, we must acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, - any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got " That government is best which governs not at all ; " out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind does not settle the West. It does not educate. The of government which they will have. Government is at character inherent in the American people has done all best but an expedient ; but most governments are usu- that has been accomplished ; and it would have done ally, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. some-,what more, if the government had not sometimes The objections which have been brought against a stand- got in its way. For government is an expedient by ingarmy, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to which men would fain succeed in letting one another prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedi government. The standing army is only an arm of the ent, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and standing government. The government itself, which is commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, only the mode which the people have chosen to execute would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if before the people can act through it. Witness the pre- one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of sent Dlexican war, the work of comparatively a few their actions and not partly by their intentions, they individuals using the standing government as their tool ; would deserve to be classed and punished with those for, in the outset, the people would not have consented mischievous persons who put obstructions on the rail- to this measure. roads. This American government, - what is it but a tradi- But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike tion, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself those who call themselves no-government men, I ask uuimlreired io posterity, but each instant losing some for, not at once no government, but at once a better of its integrity :' It has not the vitality and force of a government. Let every man make known what kind single living man ; for a single man can bend it to his of government would command his respect, and that will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people them- will be one step toward obtaining it.

358 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 359 After all, the practical reason why, when the power that it is a damnable business in which they are con- is once in t1x" hands of the people, a majority are per- cerned ; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what mitted, arrd for a long period continue, to rule is not are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and because they are most likely to be in the right, nor be- magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in cause this seems fairest to the minority, but because power? Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, man thc.v are physically the strongest . But a government in such a as an American government can make, or on which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based such as it can make a man with its black arts, - a justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man not be a government in which majorities do not vir- laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may tually decide right and wrong, but conscience? -in say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, which majorities decide only those questions to which though it may be, - the rule. of expediency is applicable ? Must the citizen " Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his As his Gorse to the rampart we hurried ; conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot conscience, then ? I think that we should be men first, O'er the grave where our hero we buried ." and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The mainly, but as machines, with their bodies . They are only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, at any time What I think right. It is truly enough said posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free that a, corporation has no conscience ; but a corporation exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral of conscientious men is a corporation with a con- sense ; but they put themselves on a level with wood science. Law never made men a whit more just ; and, and earth and stones ; and wooden men can perhaps by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. are daily made the agents of injustice . A common and Such command no more respect than men of straw or natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, pri- as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are com- vates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable rnonly esteemed good citizens. Others -as most legis- order ()vcr hill t:nd dale to the wars, against their lators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders wills, :iv, their common sense and consciences, -serve the state chiefly with their heads ; an(], as they cwhip-l: rziake", it wry .:.lr marching indeed, and pro- rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely duces a palpit :diou of the heart. They have no doubt 1o serve the devil, without intending it, as God . A

360 CIVIL. DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 361 very few --as Heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about great sense, aml men - serve the state with their con- it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, sciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let part ; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. us not have such a machine any longer. In other A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not words, when a sixth of the population of a nation submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least :- slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and " I am too high-born to be propertied, subjected to military To be a secondary at control, law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to Or useful serving-roan and instrument rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the sovereign state throughout the world." To any more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men ap- not our own, but ours is the invading army. pears to them useless and selfish ; but lie who gives Paley, a common authority with many on moral himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor questions, in his chapter on the " Duty of Submission and philanthropist. to Civil Government," resolves all civil obligation into How does it become a, man to behave toward this expediency; and he proceeds to say that " so long as American government to-day ? I answer, that be can- the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so not without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot long as the established government cannot be resisted for an instant recognize that political organization as or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will my government which is the slave's government also. of God . . . that the established government be obeyed, Ail men recognize the right of revolution ; that is, -and no longer. This principle being admitted, the the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the gov- justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced ernment, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great to a computation of the quantity of the danger and and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not grievance on the one side, and of the probability and the case now. But such was the case, they think, in expense of redressing it on the other." Of this, he says, the 11cvolution of '7G . If one were to tell me that this every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears Was a bail government because it taxed certain foreign never to have contemplated those cases to which the conunoditics Drought to its ports, it is most probable rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, that I ,should not make an ado about it, for I can do as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it without theta . All machines have their friction ; and may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drown- possibly tliis does enough good to counterbalance the ing man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

DISOBEDIENCE 362 CIVIL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 363 to Paley, This, according would be inconvenient. But they know not what to do, and do nothing ; who even would save his life, in such a case, he that shall lose it. postpone the question of freedom to the question of people must cease to hold slaves, and This to make free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, a people. it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they riglst at the present crisis petition ; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. "A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut, They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy '1'o have leer train borne tip, and her soul trail in the dirt ." the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret . At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble counte- Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in nance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. IVIassaehusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and virtue to one virtuous man . But it is easier to deal farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and with the real possessor of a thing than with the tem- agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not pre- porary guardian of it. pared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back- may. I quarrel not what it with far-off foes, but with gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with who, ,near at home, cooperate and those with, do the right and wrong, with moral questions ; and betting bidding of, those far away, and without whom the lat- naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters ter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think that the mass of men are unprepared ; but improve- right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right ment is slow, because the few are not materially wiser should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. . or better than the many It is not so important that Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expe inany be as good as as should you, that there be some diency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for absolute goodness somewhere ; for that will leaven the it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that whole lump. 'There are thousands who are in opinion it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through do nothing to put an end to them ; who, esteeming the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit the action of masses of men . When the majority shall clown with their hands in their pockets, and say that at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be be-

364 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 365 cause they are indifferent to slavery, or because there ness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self- is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile freedom by his vote. garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or and orphans that may be ; who, in short, ventures to elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Pre- live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, sidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are which has promised to bury him decently. politicians by profession ; but I think, what is it to any It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to de- independent, intelligent, and respectable man what de- vote himself to the eradication of any, even the most cision they may come to ? Shall we not have the advan- enormous, wrong ; he may still properly have other con- tage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless ? Can we cerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash not count upon some independent votes ? Are there not his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not many individuals in the country who do not attend con- to give it practically his support. If I devote myself ventions? But no : I find that the respectable man, so to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, called, has immediately drifted from his position, and at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another despairs of his country, when his country has more rea- man's shoulders . I must get off him first, that he may son to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsist- candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus ency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen proving that he is himself available for any purposes of say, " I should like to have them order me out to help the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who Mexico ; - see if I would go ; " and yet these very men may have been bought . O for a man who is a man, have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indi- and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which rectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an at fault : the population has been returned too large. unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the How many men are there to a square thousand miles in unjust government which makes the war; is applauded this country ? Hardly one. Does not America offer any by those whose own act and authority he disregards inducement for men to settle here ? The American has and sets at naught ; as if the state were penitent to that dwindled into an Odd Fellow, -one who may be degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, known by the development of his organ of gregarious- but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a mo-

366 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 367 ment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Gov- never cheated again. Action from principle, the percep- ernment, we are all made at last to pay homage to and tion and the performance of right, changes things and support our own meanness . After the first blush of sin relations ; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not COTULS its indifference ; and from immoral it becomes, as consist wholly with anything which was. It not only it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life divides States and churches, it divides families ; ay, it which we have made. divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him The broadest and most prevalent error requires the from the divine. most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight re- Unjust laws exist : shall we be content to obey them, proach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at while they disapprove of the character and measures of once? Men generally, under such a government as this, a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so the majority to alter them. They think that, if they frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to dis- But it is the fault of the government itself that the regard the requisitions of the President . Why do they remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why not dissolve it themselves, -the union between them- is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform ? sclvesand the State,-and refuse to pay their quota into Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does its treasury ? Do not they stand in the same relation to it cry and resist before it is hurt ? Why does it not en- the State that the State does to the Union ? And have courage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting faults, and do better than it would have them ? Why the Union which have prevented them from resisting does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Co- the State ? pernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Flow can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion Franklin rebels? merely, and enjcw it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if One would think, that a deliberate and practical offence never 1:is opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated denial of its authority was the only con- else, why has it not assigned out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest templated by government ; satisfied ~ ith knowing that you are cheated, or with its definite, its suitable and proportionate, penalty ? If saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning a man who has no property refuses but once to earn is put in him to pa,y you your due ; but you take effectual steps nine shillings for the State, be prison for a at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are period unlimited by any law that I know, and deter-

368 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 369 by mined only l;he discretion of those who placed him ness and consideration the only spirit that can appre- there ; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings ciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large birth and death, which convulse the body. again . I do not hesitate to say, that those who call them- If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of selves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw the machine of government, let it go, let it go : per- their support, both in person and property, from the chance it will wear smooth, -certainly the machine government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they will wear out . If the injustice has a spring, or a pul- constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right ley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not they have God on their side, without waiting for that be worse than the evil ; but if it is of such a nature other one. Moreover, any man more right than his that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to an- neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. other, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a I meet this American government, or its representa- counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to tive, the State government, directly, and face to face, do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to once a year-no more-in the person of its tax- the wrong which I condemn. gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated As for adopting the ways which the State has pro- as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, vided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. Recognize me ; and the simplest, the most effectual, They take too much time, and a man's life will be and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispensa- gone . I have other affairs to attend to. I came into blest mode of treating with it on this head, of express- this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live ing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is everything to do, but something ; and because lie can- the very man I have to deal with, -for it is, after all, not do everything, it is not necessary that he should do with men and not with parchment that I quarrel,- soinethring wrong. It is not my business to be petition- and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the gov- ing the Governor or the Legislature any more than it ernment. How shall he ever know well what he is and is theirs to petition me ; and if 'they should not hear does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until my petition, what should I do then ? But in this case he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his the State has provided no way ; its very Constitution is neighbor, for whom lie has respect, as a neighbor and the evil. This Way seem to be harsh and stubborn and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of unconciliatory ; but it is to treat with the utmost kind- the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction

370 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 371 his race to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impet- and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of free and uous thought or speech corresponding with his action. should find them ; on that separate, but more who I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, honorable, ground, where the State places those are not with her, but against her,-the only house in if ten men whom I could name, - if ten honest men in which a . only, - ay, if one I30NLST man, in this State of Massa- a slave State free man can abide with honor If any think that their influence there, chusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to with- would be lost draw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, in America. For it matters not how small the begin- they do not know by how much truth is stronger than ning may seem to be : what is once well done is done error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively forever. But we love better to talk about it : that he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in your whole vote, strip we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of his own person . Cast not a of but your whole influence. A minority is newspapers in its service, but not one man . If my paper merely, while it conforms to the majority ; it is not esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who will powerless devote his days to the settlement of the question of even a minority then ; but it is irresistible when it clogs human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the to If thousand down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which State will not hesitate which choose. a pay their tax-bills this year, that would is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister, men were not to a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to --though at present she can discover only an act of not be inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her, - pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and of the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition following winter. a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the other public officer, asks me, as Tinder a government which imprisons any unjustly, tax-gatherer, or any But what shall I do ? " my answer is, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The one has done, " proper place to-day, the only place which Massachu- °~ If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." and officer setts has provided for her freer and less desponding When the subject has refused allegiance, the revolution is accom- spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out has resigned his office, then the blood should flow. Is there of the State by her own act, as they have already put plished. But even suppose lay not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded ? themselves out their principles. It is there that the and fugitive slave, and the Dlcxican prisoner on parole, Through this wound a man's real manhood immor-

372 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 373

tality flow, out, and lie bleeds to an everlasting death. he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are I see this blood flowing now. men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, C,esar's government, then pay him back some of his rather than the seizure of his goods, - though both will own when he demands it. " Render therefore to CTsar serve the same purpose, - because they who assert the that which is Caesar's, and to God those things which purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to are God's,"-leaving them no wiser than before as to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time `which was which ; for they did not wish to know. in accumulating property. To such the State renders When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont perceive that, whatever they may say about the magni- to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to tude and seriousness of the question, and their regard earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of one who lived wholly without the use of money, the the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But of the existing government, and they dread the conse- the rich man - not to make any invidious comparison quences to their property and families of disobedience - is always sold to the institution which makes him to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that rich . Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I virtue ; for money comes between a man and his ob- deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax- jects, and obtains them for him ; and it was certainly bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many ques- so harass me and my children without end. This is tions which lie would otherwise be taxed to answer; hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live hon- while the only new question which it puts is the hard estly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities property; that would be sure to go again. You must of living are diminished in proportion as what are called hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, the " means " are increased . The best thing a man can and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for out those schemes which he entertained when he was a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow poor. Clirist answered the Herodians according to their rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good condition . "Show me the tribute-money," said he ;- subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said : and mw t()()k a peimy out of leis pocket ;--if you use "If a state is governed by the principles of reason, has money wliiclc the image of Caesar on it, and which poverty and misery are subjects of shame ; if a state

374 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 375 is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and a like demand on me since; though it said that it must honors are the subjects of shame." No : until I want adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me known how to name them, I should then have si=;ned in some, distant Southern port, where my liberty is off in detail from all the societies which I never signed endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up on to ; but I did not know where to find a complete an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford list. to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into my property and life. It costs me less in every sense a jail once on this account, for one night ; and, as I to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and in that case. the iron grating which strained the light, I could not Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the help being struck with the foolishness of that institu- Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum tion which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should my father attended, but never I myself. " Pay," it have concluded at length that this was the best use it said, " or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster ; was a still more difficult one to climb or break through for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did However, at the request of the selectmen, I conde- not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons writ- scended to make some such statement as this in who are underbred . In every threat and in every com- ing:-- Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry pliment there was a blunder ; for they thought that my Thoreau. do riot wish to be regarded as a member of chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone any incorporated society which I have not joined,' wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously This I gave to the town cleric; and he has it. The they locked the door on my meditations, which followed State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be them out again without let or hindrance, and they were regarded as a member of that church, has never made really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach

376 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 377 me, they had resolved to punish my body ; just as boys, The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. if they cannot come at some person against whom they The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat have a spite, will abuse his clog. I saw that the State and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with But the jailer said, " Come, boys, it is time to lock up ;" bcr silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room- it, and pitied it. mate was introduced to me by the jailer as " a first-rate Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he man- senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, aged matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once but with superior physical strength. I was not born to a month ; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment us see who is the strongest. What force has a multi- in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came tude? They only can force me who obey a higher law from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told than I. They force me to become like themselves. I him, I asked him in my turn how be came there, pre- do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that suming him to be an honest man, of course ; and, as the by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live ? world goes, I believe he was. " Why," said he, " they When I meet a government which says to me, "Your accuse me of burning a barn ; but I never did it." As money or your life," why should I be in haste to give near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and know what to do : I cannot help that. It must help so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being itself ; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel a clever man, had been there some three months waiting about it . I am not responsible for the successful work- for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much ing of the machinery of society. I am not the son of longer ; but he was quite domesticated and contented, the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a since he got his board for nothing, and thought that lie claestcnit fall side by side, the one does not remain inert was well treated. to make way for the other, but both obey their own He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they that if one stayed there long, his principal business can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the would be to look out the window. I had soon read all other. If a. plant cannot live according to its nature, it the tracts that were left there, and examined where dies ; and so a man . former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had

378 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 379 been sawed off, and heard the history of the various oc- In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the cupants of that room ; for I found that even here there hole in the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made was a history and a gossip which never circulated be- to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown yond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the louse in the town where verses are composed, which vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread are afterward printed in a circular form, but not pub- I had left; but my comrade seized it, and said that I lished. I was shown quite a long list of verses which should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he were composed by some young men who had been de- was let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, tected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves whither he went every day, and would not be back till by singing them. noon ; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for if he should see me again. fear I should never see him again ; but at length he When I came out of prison,-for some one inter- showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out fered, and paid that tax, - I did not perceive that great the lamp. changes had taken place on the common, such as he It was like travelinginto a far country, such as I had observed who went in a youth and emerged a tottering never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It and gray-headed man ; and yet a change had to my seemed to me that I never had heard the town clock eyes come over the scene,-the town, and State, and strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village; for country, -greater than any that mere time could effect. we slept with the windows open, which were inside the I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I grating. It was to see my native village in the light of saw to what extent the people among whom I lived the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a could be trusted as good neighbors and friends ; that Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed their friendship was for summer weather only; that they before me. They were the voices of old burghers that did not greatly propose to do right ; that they were a I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spec- distinct race from me by their prejudices and supersti- tator and auditor of whatever was done and said in tions, as the Chinamen and Malays are ; that in their the kitchen of the adjacent village inn, -a wholly new sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not even to and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of their property ; that after all they were not so noble my ila.tive town . I was fairly inside of it. I never had but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few institutions ; for it is a shire town . I began to compre- prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though hend what its inhabitants were about. useless path from time to time, to save their souls.

380 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 381 This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I be- concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, lieve that many of them are not aware that they have I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, such an institution as the jail in their village. though I will still make what use and get what advan- It was formerly the custom in our village, when a tage of her I can, as is usual in such cases. poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from salute him, looking through their fingers, which were a sympathy with the State, they do but what they have crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, already done in their own case, or rather they abet in- " How do ye do ? " My neighbors did not thus salute justice to a greater extent than the State requires. If me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the indi- if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into vidual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely which was mended. When I was let out the next how far they let their private feelings interfere with the morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having public good. put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, This, then, is my position at present. But one can- who were impatient. to put themselves under my con- not be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his duct ; and in half an hour,-for the horse was soon action be biased by obstinacy or an undue regard for tackled, -was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the what belongs to himself and to the hour. State was nowhere to be seen. I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they This is the whole history of " My Prisons." are only ignorant ; they would do better if they knew how : why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as I have never declined paying the highway tax, be- they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is cause I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others am of being a bad subject ; and as for supporting to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow- I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of cotmtrvmen now. It is for no particular item in the men, without heat, without ill will, without personal tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof without the possibility, such is their constitution, of re- from it effectiuallv . I do not care to trace the course tracting or altering their present demand, and without of my dollar, if I could, till it buvs a man or a musket the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other to shoot one with, - the dollar is innocent, -but I am millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming

382 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 383 brute force ? You do not resist cold and hunger, the round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and winds and the waves, thus obstinately ; you quietly sub- position of the general and State governments, and the mit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity. your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I " We must affect our country as our parents, regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a And if at any time we alienate human force, and consider that I have relations to Our love or industry from doing it honor, those millions as to so many millions of men, and not We must respect effects and teach the soul Matter of of mere brute or inanimate conscience and religion, things, I see that appeal is And not desire of rule or benefit ." possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to them- I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my selves. But if I put my head deliberately into the fire, work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be there is no appeal to fire or to the 1Taker of fire, and I no better a patriot than my fellow-countrymen . Seen have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they its faults, is very good ; the law and the courts are very are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, respectable ; even this State and this American govern- in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of ment are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mus- things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have sulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied described them ; but seen from a point of view a little with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. higher, they are what I have described them; seen from And, above all, there is this difference between resist- a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they ing this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of resist this with some effect ; but I cannot expect, like at all ? Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees However, the government does not concern me much, and beasts. and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation . I It is not many moments that I live under a govern- do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or ment, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for rather, .1 may say, even an excuse for conforming to a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or the laws of [lie land. I am but too ready to conform reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on I know that most men think differently from myself; this head ; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes but those whose lives are by profession devoted to the

384 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 385 study of these or kindred subjects content me as little as Dot a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely of '87. " I have never made an effort," he says, " and within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly be- never propose to make an effort ; I have never counte- hold it. They speak of moving society, but have no nanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an resting-place without it . They may be men of a cer- effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, tain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt by which the various States came into the Union." invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and useful- gives to slavery, he says, " Because it was a part of the ness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are original compact,-let it stand ." Notwithstanding his wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy special acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a and expediency. Webster never goes behind govern- fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it ment, and so cannot speak with authority about it. as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect, His words are wisdom to those legislators who contem- - what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in plate no essential reform in the existing government ; America to-day with regard to slavery, - but ventures, but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as lie never once glances at the subject. I know of those the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would as a private man,-from which what new and singu- soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospi- lar code of social duties might be inferred? "The tality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of manner," says he, " in which the governments of those most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and elo- States where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their quence of politicians in general, his are almost the only own consideration, under their responsibility to their sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always never received any encouragement from me, and they in harmony with herself, and is riot concerned chiefly never will." 1 to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. They who know of no purer sources of truth, who traced up its He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, have stream no higher, stand, and wisely the Defender of the Constitution . There are really no stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at blows to be given by him but defensive ones. IIe is ' These extracts have been inserted since the lecture was read .

386 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 387 it there with reverence and humility ; but they who must have the sanction and consent of the governed. behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that It can have no pure right over my person and property pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their but what I concede to it. The progress from an abso- pilgrimage toward its fountain-head. lute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy No man with a genius for legislation has appeared to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for in America. They are rare in the history of the world. the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by enough to regard the individual as the basis of the the thousand ; but the speaker has not yet opened his empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much- improvement possible in government? Is it not pos- vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its sible to take a step further towards recognizing and own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, organizing the rights of man? There will never be a or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have really free and enlightened State until the State comes not yet learned the comparative value of free trade to recognize the individual as a higher and independent and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a na- power, from which all its own power and authority are tion They have no genius or talent for comparatively derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce with imagining a State at last which can afford to be and manufactures and agriculture . If we were left just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for as a neighbor ; which even would not think it incon- our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experi- sistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof ence and the effectual complaints of the people, Amer- from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who ica would not long retain her rank among the nations. fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have State which bore ibis kind of fruit, and suffered it to no right to say it, the New Testament has been writ- drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way ten ; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I practical talent enough to avail himself of the light have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. which it sheds on the science of legislation The authority of government, even such as I am willing to snbinit to,-for I will cheerfully obey those who know :and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well, -is still in impure one: : to be strictly just, it