CiOi^nghtN" coi»yRiGHT DEPosrr. r' FEB 12 1898 Ko. a04« ^ -^ ? V i. KB in ^m [^ r L. r MAYNARD*S English- Classic- Series - I —I— l-l-l-l— l-l~ l -l— l-l— I- .<^ ^- r ^L^ tions.) 32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. (Condensed.) 33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet, 34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings* (Condensed.) 36 Goldsmith's Vicar of; Wake- field. (Condensed.) 36 Tennyson '^s The Two Voices, and A Dream of Fair Women. 37 Memory Quotations. 38 Cavalier Poets. 39 Dryden's Alexander's Fee^st, and MacFlecknoe. 40 Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 41 Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hol- low. 42 Lamb's Tales from Shake- speare. 43 L.e Row's How to Teach Read- ing. 44 Webster's Bunker Hill Orfi\- tions. 45 The Academy Orthofipist. A Manual of Pronunciation. 46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hy.uiQ on the Nativity. 47 Bryant's Thanatopsis, and othfT Poems. 48 Ruskin's Modern Painterti. (Selections.) 49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 50 Thackeray's Roundabout Pa- pers. 51 Webster's Oration on Adams and Jefferson. 52 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 53 Morris's Life and Death of Jason. 54 Burke's Speech OH American Taxation. 55 Pope's Rape of the Lock. 56 Tennyson's Elaine. 57 Tennyson's In MenioHam. 58 Church's Story of the .^neid . 59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to liilliput. 61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- con. ((Condensed.) 62 The Alcestis of Euripides. T '^•1.^- 2572 Copyr,ght.„.898. by Mavk.hd. Me.k,,;.. & Co, \) INTRODUCTION Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. His father, a man of proud lineage and profligate habits, was a native of Baltimore ; when twenty-six years old he married an actress, and took up the precarious life of a strolling player. After six years of theatrical wandering and poverty, both died, in 1811, leaving three children to be reared by the charity of friends. Edgar, the second child, was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a tobacco merchant of Richmond, who gave him his name and provided liim with all the dangerous luxuries of wealth. In 1815 he accompanied Mr. Allan to England, and ' was placed at school in Stoke Newington, a suburb of London; his memories of this place are thought to be preserved in the tale of William Wilsofi. He returned to Richmond in 1820. At various private schools he distinguished himself in classical studies and athletic exercises, and commanded recognition as a ^ leader : but he was not popular with his aristocratic compan- J^ ions, who reminded him by their treatment that he was the son of poor actors ; and the feeling that he was an outcast, in spite of the affluence in which his life was spent, began to ex- ercise a bad influence upon the development of his character. He spent the year of 1826 at the University of Virginia, de- voting his time principally to linguistic studies. He received proficiencies in Latin and French — the highest honors of the University, which had then made no provision for conferring degrees. He had, however, contracted gambling debts. These Mr. Allan refused to pay, and he assigned his adopted son a desk in his counting-room. But the self-willed youth, spoiled by indulgence, was not amenable to discipline or restraint. He had written a few poems at the University, wL'ich had gained him flattering credit as a poet among his f .illow-students ; with these as present capital, and his genius t 1^ draw upon in future, he determined to set up business as an 4 INTRODUCTION author. Abandoning home and its luxuries, he made his way to Boston, and obtained a publisher for his juvenile verses, which appeared in 1827, with the title, Tamerlane, and otJie? Poems. By a Bostonian. But poetry did not long supply him with bread, and driven by necessity, he enlisted in th|( army. At the end of two years' service a reconciliation witp his foster-father was effected, and he w^as sent to West Point. While awaiting his appointment he published a second volume of poems, 1829, entitled, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. All of these early poems are crude and imitative, Byron being his chief master. Al Aaraaf is an incompre- hensible allegory, exhibiting, however, some of the qualities that were to characterize his later work, especially his " at- tempt to seize the impalpable, to fix the evanescent, to per- ceive the supersensual." Poe had now chosen his profession ; but after six months of the discipline of cadet life he determined to abandon it, brought about his own expulsion, Mr. Allan having refused to recog- nize his resignation, and returned to Richmond in disgrace ; providing, however, for the immediate future by a new edi- tion of his verses, liberally subscribed for by the students, which was published in New York, in 1880, entitled simply Poems. This episode caused the final rupture with his long- suffering benefactor. Friendless, penniless, and with no hope of an inheritance, he now began the uneven struggle of povertj with letters, which for seventeen years was maintained with little surcease of bitterness and suffering. In 1838 he won a literary prize of one hundred dollars with a prose tale, A MS. Found in a Bottle. By this success he secured friends, repu- tation, and a position as editor of the Southern Literary Mes- senger. He had been living in Baltimore w^ith his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and in 1886 married her daughter Virginia, a mere child, beau- tiful, and sylph-like as one of the imaginary beings of his own creation. For many years she was an invalid, and died in 1847, at the age of twenty-five. Poe's love for this child-wife, says Mr. Graham, "was a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of beauty, which he felt was fading before his eyes. aL have seen him hovering around her when she was ill, with al. INTRODUCTION 5 the fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for her first- born, her slightest cough causing him a shudder, a heart-chill that was visible." Mrs. Clemm proved, indeed, more than a mother to him. She took entire charge of his household, received and expended his meager wages, and with saint-like devotion watched over him through sickness, grief, and de- spair, until the last. She was, says N. P. Willis, "his minis- tering angel, living with him, caring for him, guarding him against exposure ; and when he was carried away by tempta- tion, amid grief and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his self-abandonment, prostrated in destitu- tion and suffering, begging for him still." For a brief period Poe was prosperous and comparatively • happy. The Messenger was successful, and through his imag- inative tales and critical essays he was rapidly winning fame. But the editorial harness always chafed him. He was proud and morbidly sensitive, and compared his toilsome life with the career of independence that his youth had promised. His work was ill-paid, and he could not gratify his poetic tastes and aspirations ; his mind was jaded by the constant applica- tion necessary to keep the wolf from the door, and his genius denied its free and best expression. He was subject to fits of melancholy and despair, and cried out in anguish against fate. Moreover, the demon of the cup was always at his side, offer- ing the nepenthe that was his ultimate ruin. It is not strange, therefore, that his life was made up of spasmodic efforts, quarrels with publishers and friends, and wanderings from place to place in the vain hope of rebuilding his shattered for- tunes. Besides contributing to innumerable periodicals, he was successively engaged in editorial work on The Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia, and the Evening Mirror and Broadway Journal in New York. But the struggle was always a losing one, and ended in a hospital /n Baltimore, October 7,' 1849. *' At the moment when, rally- ng from the desolation caused by the loss of his wife, he found new hope and purpose, and was on his way to marry a I /Oman who possibly might have saved him, the tragedy of his ^ife began again. Its final scene was as swift, irreparable, alack with terror, as that of any drama ever written. His 6 INTRODUCTION death was gloom. Men saw him no more ; but the shadow of a veiled old woman, mourning for him, hovered here and there. After many years a laureled tomb was placed above his ashes, and there remain to American literature the relics, so unequal in value, of the most isolated and exceptional of all its poets and pioneers." In personal bearing Poe was reserved and austere ; erect m stature, with finely modeled head, broad brow, large black eyes that exercised a kind of fascination when moved by thought or emotion, habitually dressed in black, with faultless taste and simplicity, he always presented an appearance of scholarly distinction and refinement. His usual expression was dreamy and sad ; though brilliant in society, and depend- ent upon friendship — especially that of women — for his moral strength, he dwelt alone, attended only by the genius of his dreams. His thoughts, emotions, and convictions were all drawn from the world of the ideal and the beautiful. " With me," he says, " poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion." He possessed true genius, but genius limited in its range. He was the poet of a single mood, and his poetical reputation res-ts upon two or three short lyrics. The highest reaches of his imagination are found in the Tales. They are often un- wholesome reading, picturing with marvelous power the regions of mystery and horror that lie upon the border-land of the infernal ; yet they are often transfused with a symbolism that lights up the darkness with spiritual beauty. As a romancer he was inferior to Hawthorne only in delicacy and grace of style. In feeling he was always a poet, in ex- pression he always worked as an artist. "Regarding this sensitive artist, this original poet, it seems indeed a tragedy that a man so ideal in either realm, so unfit for contact with ugliness, dullness, brutality, should have come to eat husks with the swine, to be misused by their human counterpartf., and to die the death of a drunkard, in the refuge which societ i offers to the most forlorn and hopeless of its castaways." } CRITICAL OPINIONS His biography explains what his tales allow one to guess, that he remained to the end ignorant of life— with the pitiful ignorance of a gifted, wayward child. Unerring as were some of his intuitions, profoundly as he knew some of the dark secrets of the heart, life has wide sunny spaces in wiiicli he never wandered, uplands that he never cared to climb. " Poe did not know enough to be a great poet," said Sidney Lanier, nor did he love enough. — Bliss Perry; Preface to^ Poe's Tides, Edgar Allan Poe stands solitary among the American men of letters. Although, by a strange chance, born in Boston, he had nothing in common with the New England group of authors, and although he passed an important part of his life in New York City, he was in no way a member of the Knick- erbocker school. Whether viewed as poet, romancer, or critic, he stands by himself ; he refuses to be classified ; he seems out of place in American literature, like an importation from the Old World— a Pushkin, or Heine, or De Musset ; like a brilliant exotic among tJie native wild flowers. . . It was perhaps in the short prose romance that Poe was at his best, for here his imagination had free play. His tales, all of which are short, and which, when combined, scarcely make (I volume of the size of Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, may be ^livided into two classes : imaginative tales and analytical tales. Of the former, only tw^o, Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher, need be mentioned. These mark the flood tide of Poe's ('creative achievement. . . The second division of Poe's tales may be understood best from his ingenious tale. The Gold pug. Poe's brain was keen and electric. He had the analytic fjaculty in a high degree, and he delighted in applying it to the sjolution of almost impossible problems. . . His plots are ^jirranged with great skill, and the reader is drawn rapidly to the climax in the w^ay that will most completely unnerve him. jj^oe's one thought was of the effect he was producing on his 7 8 CRITICAL OPINIONS reader. Instruction and moral lessons had, he maintained, nc place in fiction. — F. L. Pattee : American Literature. Poe^is often, and correctly enough, termed a romancer. Certainly he was a writer of ornate, yet vision-bred and illusive legends of some dreamland of his own, and not a novelist observing our everyday world. His rarest tales have the quality of pure romance, and otherwise his inventive prose is concerned with incident and adventure rather than with the portrayal of human character. This of course, since he was a poet, and few of the breed are novelists. The Tales of Con- science with the extraordinary confession of William Wilson at their head show that the artist was a psychologist as well, although his insight was applied almost solely to the morbid processes of remorse and guilty fear. As we turn to his other stories, it appears that some injustice has been done to his versatilit3% plainly owing to the monotone of Jiis poems in verse and prose. The man is to be envied for his working hours if pitied for his struggles and distraught career. He enjoyed the play of his mind as thoroughly as an athlete put- ting his thews to the test for the delight of action. This dreamer figures as the most alert of journalists in the banter and extravagance of minor pieces ; he is an adept at laborious hoaxes and queerly elaborate imaginings of scientific experi- ment. We find him, most of all, pluming himself upon the intricate trail-hunting for w^hich he developed such a bent in his creation, by The Purloined Letter, The Murders in the Rue Morgue y and The Mystery of Marie Roget of the far too vital school of police fiction. At the other extreme, and when most in earnest, he fails— as who indeed could not ? — to solve the secret of the Absolute. Yet, considered neither as sound physics nor as metaphysics, how suggestive all this mass of fiction and speculation ! The writings in which he beconaes tedious, and often seems to labor, are tales of preposterous adventure, notably that of ArtJiur Gordon Pym. . . Therr is no evidence that he visited the countries where the scenes ol his Old-World romances are laid, but he captured the spirit or each until infused with it. In instinct for tone, he stands at the head. Following him up in other directions, we recognize bis brain-power, the energy of a strong engine often in need of CEITICAL OPIII^IONS 9 a steady driver. He was full of speculation, light and serious by turns, concerning the possibilities of science, and had the fine curiosity, if not the temper and habit, of a savant. Noth- ing of knowledge was alien to him : he had at least a capricious passion for intellectual truth, and a prophetic turn of his own. . , Nowadays a literary style is often most in evidence through the effort to make it appear unstudied. Poe's mastery, like Ruskin's, is that of sheer intensity, poetic elo- quence, and word-painting, in brilliant passages such as the iridescent and cumulative finale of ArnJieim. But of style in the modern sense, with its outlawry of stock words and phrases, adroit rather than instinctive grace and consonance, and the maintenance of a grade once taken, he was not a master, nor was there any master in his day. . . . He started a revolt against " the didactic," and was our natipnal propa- gandist of the now hackneyed formula, Art for Art's sake, and of the creed that in perfect beauty consists the fullest truth. . . . These tales . . . were written by an ill-paid journalist, at a time when his own country depended on foreign spoliation for its imaginative reading. When they show him at his worst, his exigencies justly may be borne in mind ; if his style seems often formless and disjointed, it must be remembered that he wrote before the days of Arnold and Pater, of Flaubert, Daudet, and Maupassant.^ — E. G. Stedman: Introduction to Foe's Tales. For us it is enough to know that you were compelled to live by your pen, and that in an age when the author of To Helen and The Cask of Amontillado was paid at the rate of a dollar a column. When such poverty was the mate of such pride as yours, a misery more deep than that of Burns', an agony h< 1)1%^^ ^^^^ *^^^^ ^f Chatterton's, were inevitable and assured. -Qj ^^^ man was less fortunate than you in the moment of his birth, infelix opjportunitate mtce. Had you lived a generation later, honor, wealth, applause, success in Europe and home, would all have been yours. Within thirty years so great a change has passed over the profession of letters in America ; and it is impossible to estimate the rewards which would have if alien to Edgar Poe, had chance made him the contemporary massa^ pon dis side.^^ " Then go one limb higher.^^ In a few minutes the voice was heard again an- nouncing that the seventh limb was attained. " Now^ Jup/^ cried Legrand^, evidently much ex- 10 cited^ " I want you to work your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If you see anything strange, let me know.'^ By this time what little doubt I might have enter- tained of my poor friend^s insanity, was put finally at 15 rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice was heard. 20 " Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far — 'tis dead limb putty much all de way.'' " Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter? " cried Legrand, in a quivering voice. '^ Yes, massa, him dead as de doornail — done up 25 for sartain — done departed dis here life." " What in the name of Heaven shall I do ? " asked Legrand, seemingly in the greatest distress. " Do! " said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, " why, come home and go to bed. Come 30 now! — that's a fine fellow. It's getting late, and, besides, you remember your promise." 30 THE GOLD BUG "Jupiter/^ cried he^ without heeding me in the leasts " do you hear me? '^ " Yes^ Massa Will^ hear you ebber so plain.'^ ^' Try the wood well^ then^ with your knife'^ and see 5 if you think it very rotten/^ " Him rotten^ massa,' sure nuff/^ replied the negro^ in a few moments, " but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought ventur out leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat^s true/^ 10 " By yourself? — what do you mean? ^^ " Why, I mean de bug. ^Tis lerry hebby bug. Spose I drop him down fuss, and den de limb won^t break wid just de weight ob one nigger.^^ ^^You infernal scoundrel! ^^ cried Legrand, appar- 15 ently much relieved, " what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that? As sure as you let that beetle fall, 1^11 break your neck. Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me? ^^ "Yes, massa, needn^t hollo at poor nigger dat 20 style.'' " Well! now listen! — if you will venture out on the limb as far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make you a present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down." 35 " I'm gwine, Massa Will — deed I is," replied the negro, very promptly — " mos out to the eend now." "^^ Out to the end!^^ here fairly screamed Legrand, " do you say you are out to the end of that limb? " " Soon be to de eend, massa, — o-o-o-o-oh! Lor- 30 gol-a-marcy! what is dis here pon de tree? " "Well!" cried Legrand, highly delighted, "what is it?" THE GOLD BUG 31 '' Why^ taint noffin but a skull — somebody bin lef him head up de tree^ and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off/^ " A skull, you say! — very well! — how is it fastened to the limb? — what holds it on? ^^ > 5 " Sure nuflf, massa; mus look. Why, dis berry eurous sarcumstance, pon my word — dare^s a great big nail in de skull what fastens ob it on to de tree/^ " Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you — do you hear? '^ 10 " Yes, massa/^ ^^Pay attention, then! — find the left eye of the skull/' " Hum! hoo! dat's good! why, dare aint no eye lef at all/' 15 ^^ Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from your left? " " Yes, I nose dat — nose all bouf dat — 'tis my lef hand what I chops de wood wid/' ^^ To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left 20 eye is on the same side as your left hand/ Now, I suppose, you can find the left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been. Have you found it?" Here was a long pause: At length the negro asked: 25 '^ Is de lef eye ob de skull pon de same side as de lef hand ob de skull, too? — cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at all — nebber mind! I got de lef eye, now — here de lef eye! what mus do with it? " " Let the beetle drop through it, as far the string 30 will reach — but be careful and not let go your hold of the string." 32 THE GOLD BUG " All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de bug fru de hole — look out for him dare below! '' During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's per- 5 son could be seen; but the beetle, which he had suf- fered to descend, was now visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe of burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood. 10 The scarabceus hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed to fall, would have fallen at our feet. Le- grand immediately took the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or four yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having accomplished 15 this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come down from the tree. Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his pocket a tape-measure. Fast- 20 ening one end of this at that point of the trunk of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it till it reached the peg, and thence farther unrolled it, in the direction already established by the two points of the tree and the peg, for the distance of fifty feet — 25 Jupiter clearing away the brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was driven, and about this, as a center, a rude circle, about four feet in diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and one to me, 30 Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly as possible. To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for THE GOLD BUG 33 such amusement at any time^ and^ at that particular moment, would most willingly have declined it; for the night was coming on, and I felt much fatigued with the exercise already taken; but I saw no mode of escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor 5 friend^s equanimity by a refusal. Could I have de- pended, indeed, upon Jupiter's aid, I would have had no hesitation in attempting to get the lunatic home by force; but I was too well assured of the old negro's disposition, to hope that he would assist me, under 10 any circumstances, in a personal contest with his master. I made no doubt that the latter had been infected with some of the innumerable Southern superstitions about money buried, and that his fan- tasy had received confirmation by the finding of the 15 scardbceuSy or, perhaps, by Jupiter^s obstinacy in maintaining it to be '^ a bug of real gold.'' A mind disposed to lunacy would readily be led away by such suggestions; especially if chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas; and then I called to mind the 20 poor fellow's speech about the beetle's being ^^the index of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was" sadly vexed and puzzled, but at length I concluded to make a virtue of necessity — to dig with a good will, "and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by 25 ocular demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained. The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons and implements, I could 30 not help thinking how picturesque a group we com- posed, and how strange and suspicious our labors 34 THE GOLD BUG must have appeared to any interloper who^ by chance^ might have stumbled upon our whereabouts. We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our chief embarrassment lay in the yelp- 5 ings of the dog^ who took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He^ at length, became so obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity; or, rather, this was the apprehension of Legrand; for myself, I should have 10 rejoiced at any interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by Jupiter, who, getting out of the hole with a dogged air of deliberation, tied the brute^s mouth up with one of 15 his suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to his task. When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A general pause ensued, 20 and I began to hope that the farce was at an end. Legrand, however, although evidently much discon- certed, wiped his brow thoughtfully and rejgom- menced. We had excavated the entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged the limit, 25 and went to the further depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, whom I sin- cerely pitied, at length clambered from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment imprinted upon every feature, and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put 30 on his coat, which he had throwm off at the begin- ning of his labor. In the meantime I made no re- 6. Obstreperous. (L. oh, before + strepo, roar.) Noisy ; clamorous. THE GOLD BUG 35 mark. Jupiter^ at a signal from his master^, began to gather up his tools. This done^ and the dog having been unmuzzled^ we turned in profound silence to- ward home. We had taken^ perhaps^ a dozen steps in this direc- 5 tion^ when with a loud oath^ Legrand strode up to Jupiter^ and seized him by the collar. The aston- ished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest extent^ let fall the spades, and fell u.pon his knees. '^ You scoundrel/^ said Legrand, hissing out the 10 syllables from between his clenched teeth — " you in- fernal black villain! — ^^speak, I tell you! — answer me this instant, without prevarication! — which — which is your left eye ? ^^ " Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef 15 eye for sartain?^^ roared the terrified Jupiter, plac- ing his hand upon his riglii organ of vision, and hold- ing it there with a desperate pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master^s attempt at a gouge. "I thought so! — I knew it! hurrah! ^^ vociferated 20 Legrand, letting the negro go and executing a series of curvets and caracols, much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his knees, looked mutely from his master to myself, and then from myself to his master. 25 " Come! we must go back,^^ said the latter, " the gamers not up yet;^^ and he again led the way to the tulip tree. " Jupiter,^^ said he, when we reached its foot, " come here; was the skull nailed to the limb with 30 the face outward, or with the face to the limb? ^^ 18. Pertinacity. (L. j!?€r, through + ife/?^o, hold). Dogged perseverance. 36 THE GOLD BUG " De face was out^ massa^ so dat de crows could get at de eyes good, widout any trouble/^ " Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped the beetle? ^^ — here Legrand touched 5 each of Jupiter's eyes. " 'Twas dis eye, massa — de lef eye — jis as you tell me,'^ and here it was his right eye that the negro indicated. " That will do — we must try it again.'^ 10 Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw or fancied that I saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the west- ward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape 15 measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging. 20 Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former instance, was now described, and we again set to work with the spades. I was dread- fully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no 25 longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had become most unaccountably interested — nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of Legrand — some air of forethought, or of deliberation — which impressed 30 me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself 10. About whose madness. Cf. " Though this be madness, yet there is method in' V— Hamlet II. 1. THE GOLD BUG 37 actually looking, with something that very much re- sembled expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate com- panion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at 5 work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent bowlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's 10 again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious re- sistance, and leaping into the hole, tore up the mold frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two com- plete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of 15 metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as we dug fur- ther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to light. 20 At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly uttered when I stumbled and fell for- 25 ward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay half buried in the loose earth. We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass 3. Demented. (L. de, from -|- ^ens, mind.) Deprived of reason ; insane. 9. Caprice. (L. capr a, goat. ^ " A ' caprice ' then is a movement of the mind as unaccountable and as little to be calculated on beforehand as the springs and bounds of a goat." — Trench. 38 THE GOLD BUG ten minutes of more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to 5 some mineralizing process — perhaps that of the bi- chloride of mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open trelliswork 10 over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron — six in all — by means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed. We at once saw 15 the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back — trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the 20 rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there flashed upw^ards from a confused heap of gold and of jewels a glow and a glare that absolutely dazzled our eyes. I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course,, pre- 25 dominant. Legrand appeared exhausted with excite- ment, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's counte- nance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in the nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume. He seemed stupefied — thunder- 30 stricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the THE GOLD BUG 39 luxury of a bath. At lengthy with a deep sigh^ he exclaimed^ as if in a soliloquy: '' And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole- bug! de poor little goole-bug^ what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style! Aint you ashamed ob yourself^ 5 nigger? — answer me dat! ^^ It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of remov- ing the treasure. It was growing late, and it be- hooved us to make exertion, that we might get every- 10 thing housed before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation — so confused w^ere the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two-thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, with some 15 trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretense, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We then hur- 20 riedly made for home with the chest, reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more immediately. We rested until two, and had supper; starting for the hills 25 immediately afterward, armed with three stout sacks, which, by good luck, were upon the premises. A little before four we arrived at the pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as equally as might be, among us, and leaving the holes unfilled, again set 30 out for the hut, at which for the second time, we 9. Behooved. (A. S. behofian.) Was proper or necessary. 40 THE GOLD BtJG deposited our golden burdens^, just as the first faint streaks of the dawn gleamed from over the tree-tops in the east. We were now thoroughly broken down; but the 5 intense excitement of the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three or four hours' duration^ we arose, as if by preconcert, to make examination of our treasure. The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent 10 the whole day, and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its contents. There had been noth- ing like order or arrangement. Everything had been heaped in promiscuously. Having assorted all with care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster 15 wealth than we had at first supposed. In coin there was rather more than four hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars — estimating the value of the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of the period. There was not a particle of silver. All was gold of 20 antique date and of great variety — French, Spanish, and German money, with a few English guineas, and some counters, of which we had never seen specimens before. There were several very large and heavy coins, so worn that we could make nothing of their 25 inscriptions. There was no American money. The value of the jewels we found more difiiculty in esti- mating. There were diamonds — some of them ex- ceedingly large and fine — a hundred and ten in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of re- 80 markable brilliancy; three hundred and ten emeralds, 21. Guineas. English gold pieces first coined from Guinea gold (1663). 22. Counters. Coins, THE GOLD BUG 41 all very beautiful^ and twenty-one sapphires^ with an opal. These stones had all been broken from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold, appeared to have been beaten up with 5 hammers, as if to prevent identification. Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold orna- ments: nearly two hundred massive finger and ear- rings; rich chains — thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes; five 10 gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine* leaves and bacchanalian figures; with two sword- handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The 15 weight of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not^ included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches; three of the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of 20 them were very old, and as timekeepers valueless; the works having suffered more or less from corrosion; but all were richly jeweled and in cases of great worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night, at a million and a half of dollars; 25 -land upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few being retained for our own use), it was found that we had greatly undervalued the treasure. 13. Bacchanalian figures. (L. Bacchus, god of wine). Figures of riotous revelers. 17. Avoirdupois. Valuables are usually reckoned by Troy weight, but the vast amount of this treasure led its finders to estimate the gross weight avoirdupois. 42 THE GOLD BUG When, at length, we had concluded our examina- tion and the intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, subsided, Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most ex- 5 traordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of all the circumstances connected with it. " You remember,^^ said he, " the night when I handed you the rough sketch I had made of the scarabceus. You recollect also, that I became quite 10 vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a death^s-head. When you first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterward I called to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some little 15 foundation in fact. Still the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me — ^for I am considered a good artist — and therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily into the fire.^^ 20 '^ The scrap of paper, you mean,'^ said I. " No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It was quite dirty, you re- 25 member. Well, as I was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had bv.en looking, and you may imagine my astonish- ment, when I perceived, in fact, the figure of a death^s-head just where, it seemed to me, I had made 30 the drawing of the beetle. For a moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew that my design was very different in detail from this — THE GOLD BUG 43 although there wa& a certain similarity in general outline. Presently I took a candle^ and seating myself at the other end of the room^ proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turn- ing it over^ I saw my own sketch upon the reverse^ 5 just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of out- line — at the singular coincidence involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately 10 beneath my figure of the scarabceus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The 15 mind struggles to establish a connection — a sequence of cause and effect^ — and, being unable to do so, suf- fers a species of tentporary paralysis. But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually a conviction which startled me even far 20 more than the coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there had been no draw- ing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of the scaradceus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side and then 25 the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the 30 most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth which la'st 44 THE GOLD BUG nighf s adventure brought to so magnificent a demon- stration. I arose at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all further reflection until I should be alone. 5 " When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook myself to a more methodical investi- gation of the affair. In the first place I considered tl^e manner in which the parchment had come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the 10 scarabceus was on the coast of the mainland, about a mile eastward of the island, and but a short distance above high-water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, before 15 seizing the insect, which had flown toward him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then supposed to be 20 paper. It was lying half-buried in the sand, a cor- ner sticking up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of the hull of what appeared to have been a ship^s long boat. The wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the 25 resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced. " Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterward we turned to go home, and on the way met Lieuten- ant G . I showed him the insect, and he begged 30 me to let him take it to the fort. On my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, with- out the parchment in which it had been wrapped, THE GOLD BUG 45 and which I had continued to hold in my hand dur- ing his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my chang- ing my mind^ and thought it best to make sure of the prize at once — you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with Natural History. At the 5 same time^, without being conscious of it^ I must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket. " You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept. I looked 10 in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter and then my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the pre- cise mode in which it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force. 15 " No doubt you will think me fanciful — but I had already established a kind of connection. I had put together two links of a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a seacoast, and not far from the boat was a parchment — not a paper — with a skull depicted 20 on it. You will, of course, ask ^ where is the connec- tion? ^ I reply that the skull or death^s-head, is the well known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death^s-head is hoisted in all engagements. " I have said that the scrap was parchment, and 25 not paper. Parchment is durable — almost imperish- able. Matters of little moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or writing it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning — 30 some relevancy — in the death^s-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the form of the parchment. Al- 46 THE GOLD BUG though one of its corners had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum — for a record 5 of something to be long remembered and carefully preserved/^ " But,^^ I interposed, '^ you say that the skull was not upon the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you trace any connec- 10 tion between the boat and the skull — since this latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scardbceus ? '^ " Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although 15 the secret, at this point, I had comparatively little difRculty in solving. My steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the scarahceus, there was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had 20 completed the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it. You, therefore did not design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done. 25 ^^ At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and did remember, with entire distinct- ness, every incident which occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly (0 rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing on the 30 hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your THE GOLD BUG 47 hand^ and you were in the act of inspecting it^ Wolf^ the Newfoundland^ entered^ ^nd leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him. ofE^ while your rights holding the parchment^ was permitted to .fall listlessly between 5 your knees^ and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it^ and was about to caution you^ but^ before I could speak^ you had withdrawn it^ and were engaged in its exami- nation. When I considered all these particulars^ 1 10 doubted not for a moment that Jieat had been the agent in bringing to lights upon the parchment^ the skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical preparations exists and have existed time out of mind^ by means of which it is 15 possible to write upon either paper or vellum^ so that the characters shall become visible only when sub- jected to the action of fire, Zaffre^ digested in aqua regia, and diluted with four times its weight of water^ is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The 20 regulus of cobalt^ dissolved in spirit of niter^ gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools^ but again become apparent upon the re-application of heat. 25 ^^ I now scrutinized the death^s-head with care. Its outer edges — the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum — were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately 30 kindled a fire^ and subjected every portion of the 16. Vellum (L. vitulus, calf). Fine parchment made from calves' skin. 48 THE GOLD BUG parchment to a glowing heat. At first;, the only effect was strengthening of the faint lines in the skull; but^ on persevering in the experiment^ there became visible^ at the corner of the slip^ diagonally 5 opposite to the spot in which the death^s-head was delineated^ the figure of what I at first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended for a kid.^^ " Ha! ha! ^^ said I, " to be sure I have no right to 10 laugh at you — a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth^^ — but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain — you will not find any especial connection between your pirates and a goat; pirates, you know, have nothing to do with 15 goats; they appertain to the farming interest.^^ '^ But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat.^^ '^ Well, a kid then — pretty much the same thing.^^ " Pretty much, but not altogether,^^ said Legrand. 20 " You may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signa- ture; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death^s-head at the corner diagonally 25 opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else — of the body to my imagined instrument — of the text for m.y context.^^ 20. William Kidd (1650-1701). A British sea captain who, sent to suppress piracy in the Indian ocean in October, 1696, turned pirate ; he was arrested in Boston and hanged in London. It was rumored tiiat he had buried vast treasures somewhere on the southern coast of the United States, and for this frequent unsuccessful search was made. THE GOLD BUG 49 ^' I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the signature/^ '' Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irre- sistibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. 5 Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief; but do you know- that Jupiter^s silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a re- markable effect on my fancy? And then the series of accidents and coincidences — these were so very 10 extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an acci- dent it was that these events should have occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the 15 precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the death^s-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure? ^^ '' But proceed — I am all impatience.^^ " Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories 20 current — the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so continuously, could have re- 25 suited, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterward reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. 30 You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers^ not about money-finders. Had the -?5! 50 THE GOLD BUG pirate recovered his money^ there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident — say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality — had deprived him of the means of recover- 5 ing it^ and that this accident had become known to his followers^ who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided, at- tempts to regain it, had given first birth, and then 10 universal currency, to the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being unearthed along the coast? ^^ " Never.^^ " But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is 15 well known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found, involved a lost record of the place 20 of deposit.'' " But how did you proceed? '' '' I held the vellum again to the fire, after increas- ing the heat, but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt might have some- 25 thing to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and hav- ing done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downward, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become 30 thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and to my in- expressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. THE GOLD BJja 51 Again I placed it in the pan^ and suffered it to re- main another minute. Upon taking it off^ the whole was just as you see it now/^ Here Legrand^ ha-ving re-heated the parchment^ submitted it to my inspection. The following char- 5 acters were rudely traced^, in a red tint^ between the death^s-head and the goat: 53ttt305))6*;4826)4j)4t);806*;48t8t60))85;lt);:t *8t83(88)5*f;46(; 88*96*?; 8)*J(;485);5*t2:*3:(;4956* 2(5*— 4)8t8*;4069285);)6f8)4jJ;l(j9;48081;8:8jl;410 8f85;4)485f528 806*81 (J9;48; (88; 4(f?34;48)4l;161;: 188;t?; ■ " But/^ said I, returning him the slip^ " I am as much in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me on my solution of this enigma, 15 I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them.^^ '^ And yet/^ said Legrand^ ^^ the solution is by no means so difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the characters. 20 These characters^ as anyone might readily guess^ form a cipher — that is to say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not sup- pose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind, at 25 once, that this was of a simple species — such, how- ever, as would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key.^^ 15. Golconda. A city in India famous in the sixteenth century for the cutting and polishing of diamonds ; hence, a mine of wealth. 25. Cryptographs (Gr. Jcrypto, hide + grapho^ write.) Cipher writings. 52 THE GOLD BUG " And you really solved it? ^^ " Eeadily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times greater. Circumstances^ and a certain bias of mind^ have led me to take interest in 5 such riddles^ and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not^ by proper ap- plication^ resolve. In fact^ havings once established connected and legible characters^ I scarcely gave a 10 thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import. " In the present case^ — indeed in all cases of secret writing — the question regards the language of the cipher; for the principles of solution^, so far^ espe- 15 cially^ as the more simple ciphers are concerned^ de- pend on^ and are varied by the genius of the par- ticular idiom. In general^ there is no alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, 20 until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the sig- nature. The pun upon the word ' Kidd ^ is appre- ciable in no other language than the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my at- 25 tempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English. 30 " You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such cases I THE GOLD BUG 53 should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter words^, and, had a word of a single let- ter occurred, as it is most likely {a or I, for example), I should have considered the solution as assured. But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain,, the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus: Of the character 8 there are 33. y a 26. 4 (C 19. t) i( 16. * u 13. 5 ii 13. 6 u 11. tl iC 8. u 6. 93 a 5. :3 u 4. ? u 3. if u 2. — . iC 1. 10 15 20 ^^Now, in English, the letter which most fre- quently occurs is e. Afterward, the succession runs thus: (loidhnrstuycfglmw'bJc^qx^. E predominates, however, so remarkably that an indi- 25 vidual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character. ' '^ Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the ground-work for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is 30 II Ilit M^M^ — : — ■ ly LPI 54 THE GOLD BUG obvious — ^but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8^ we will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the suppo- 5 sition^ let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples — for e is doubled with great frequency in English — in such words, for example, as ' meet/ ' fleet/ ' speed/ ' seen/ ' been/ ' agree/ etc. In the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although 10 the cryptograph is brief. " Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all the words in the language, Uhe' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation, the 15 last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent the word ^ the.^ Upon inspection, we. find no less than seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that ; repre- 20 sents t, 4 represents A, and 8 represents e — the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken. " But, having established a single word, we' are enabled to establish a vastly important point; that is 25 to say, several commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs — not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing is the 30 commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this ' the,^ we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the THE GOLD BUG 55 letters we know them to represent^ leaving a space for the unknown : t eeth. , " Here we are enabled^ at once^ to discard the ^ th/ as forming no portion of the word commencing with 5 the first t; since^ by experiment of the entire alpha- bet for a letter adapted to the vacancy^ we perceive that no word can be formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus narrowed into t ee, 10 and^ going through the alphabet^ if necessary^ as be- fore^ we arrive at the word ' tree/ as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter^ r, represented by (^ with the words ^ the tree ^ in juxtaposition. ^^ Looking beyond these words^ for a short distance^ 15 we again see the combination ;48^ and employ it by way of termination to what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement: the tree ;4(t?34 the, or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it 20 reads thus: the tree thr$?3h the, ^^ Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus: the tree thr. . . h the, 25 56 THE GOLD BUG when the word Hhrough ' makes itself evident at once. But this discovery gives us three new letters^, o, u, and g^ represented by $ ? and 3. '^ Looking now^ narrowly^ through the cipher for 5 combinations of known characters^ we find^ not very far from the beginning, this arrangement^ 83(88, or egree, which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word ^ degree/ and gives us another letter, d^ represented by f. 10 ^^ Four letters beyond the word ^ degree,^ we per- ceive the combination ;46(;88*. ^' Translating the known characters, and represent- ing the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus: 15 th rtee, an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ^ thirteen,^ and again furnishing us with the two new characters, i and n^ represented by 6 and *. ^^ Eef erring, now, to the beginning of the crypto- 20 graph, we find the combination, 53ttt. " Translating as before, we obtain . good, which assures us that the first letter is 4, and that 25 the first two words are ^ A good/ ^^ To avoid confusion, it is now time that we THE GOLD BUG 57 arrange our kej;, as far as discovered^ in a tabular form. It will stand thus: 5 represents a t a d 8 i( e 3 i( g' 4 a h 6 a 1 * a n t u ( a r 9 i( t 10 ^^ We have^ therefore^ no less than ten of the most important letters represented^ and it will be unneces- sary to proceed with the details of the solution. 1 15 have gaid enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble^ and to give you some in- sight into the rationale of their development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now 20 only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is: ^^ ^A good glass in the bishop^s hostel in the devil's seat twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes north- 25 east and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out. ^^ But/' said I, ^^ the enigma seems still in as bad 18. Rationale (L. reor, reckon.) Reasoned exposition of principles, 24. Hostel. {0,Fr.hospitale.^ Obsolete form of tfotel ; inn. 58 THE GOLD BUG a condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about ' devil's seats/ ' death's-heads,' and ' bishop's hotels? ' " " I confess/' replied Legrand^ " that the matter 5 still wears a serious aspect^ when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the cryptographist." " You mean^ to punctuate it? " 10 " Something of that kind. "I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his words together without division^, so as to increase the difficulty of solution. JSTow^, a not over-acute man^ in pursuing such an object^ would be 15 nearly certain to overdo the matter. When^ in the course of his composition^ he arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally require a pause^, or a point;, he would be exceedingly apt to run his char- acters, at this place, more than usually close together. 20 If you will observe the MS., in the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this hint, I made the division thus: " ' A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the 25 Devil's seat — twenty-one degrees and thirteen min- utes — northeast and by north — main branch seventh limb east side — shoot from the left eye of the death's- head — a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.' " 30 ^^Even this division," said I, leaves me still in the dark/' THE GOLD BUG 59 "It left me also in the dark/' replied Legrand, " for a few days; during which I made diligent in- quiry^ in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island^ for any building which went by the name of the ' Bishop's Hotel '; for^ of course^ I dropped the obso- 5 lete word ' hostel/ Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic man- ner, when one morning it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this ' Bishop's Hostel ' might have 10 some reference to an old family, of the name of Bes- sop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of the Island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and reinstituted my inquiries 15 among the older negroes of the place. At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a high rock. 20 "I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The ^ castle ' consisted of an irregular assemblage of 25 cliffs and rocks — one of the latter being quite re- markable for its height as well as for its insulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next done. 30 "While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock. 60 THE GOLD BtJG perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches^ and was not more than a foot wide^ while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of 5 the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the ' devirs-seat' alluded to in the MS.^ and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle. " The ' good glass/ I knew^ could have reference 10 to nothing but a telescope; for the word ' glass ^ is rarely employed in any other sense by seamen. Now here^ I at once saw a telescope to be used^ and a defi- nite point of view^ admitting no variation, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that 15 the phrases^ ' twenty-one degrees and thirteen min- utes/ and ' northeast and by north/ were intended as directions for the leveling of the glass. Greatly ex- cited by these discoveries^ I hurried home> procured a telescope^ and returned to the rock. 20 " I let myself down to the ledge^ and found that it was impossible to retain a seat on it except in one particular position. This fact confirmed my precon- ceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course^ the ' twenty-one degrees and thirteen min- 25 utes ^ could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the words, ' northeast and by north.^ This latter direction I at once established by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass 30 as nearly at an angle of twenty-one degrees of eleva- tion as I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a cir- THE GOLD BUG 61 cular rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In the center of this rift I perceived a white spot^ but could not^ at first;, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope^ I again looked^ and now made 5 it out to be a human skull. - '' Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to con« sider the enigma solved; for the phrase ' main branch, seventh limb, east side/ could refer only to the posi- tion of the skull upon the tree, while ' shoot from the 10 left eye of the death^s-head ^ admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee- line, or, in other words, a straight line, drawn from 15 the nearest point of the trunk through ' the shot ^ (or the spot where the bullet fell), and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a defi- nite point^ — and beneath this point I thought it at least possible that a deposit of value lay con- 20 cealed.^^ ^^AU this,^^ I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what then? '' '' Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the 25 tree, I turned homeward. The instant that I left ' the devil's seat,' however, the circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterward, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experi- 30 ment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other attain- 62 THE GOLD BUG able point of view than that afforded by the narroNV ledge upon the face of the rock. " In this expedition to the ' Bishop's Hotel ' I had been attended by Jupiter^, who had^ no doubt, ob- 5 served, for some weeks past, the abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found 10 it. When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the adven- ture I believe you are as well acquainted as myself .'' " I suppose,'^ said I, " you missed the spot, in the first attempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity 15 in letting the bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull.'' " Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a half in the ' shot ' — that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest the tree; and 20 had the treasure been beneath the ^ shot,' the error would have been of little moment; but ^ the shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the 25 beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and, by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated convic- tion that treasure was here somewhere actually buried, we might have had all our labor in vain." 30 '^ I presume the fancy of the shull — of letting fall a bullet through the skull's eye — was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a kind THE GOLD BVQ 63 of poetical consistency in recovering his money through this ominous insignium/' ^^ Perhaps so; still I cannot help thinking that common sense had quite as much to do with the matter as poetical consistency. To be visible from 5 the DeviFs seat it was necessary that the object^ if small, should be white; and there is nothing like your human skull for retaining and even increasing its whiteness under exposure to all vicissitudes of weather.'' 10^ " But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle — how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did 5^ou insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?'' 15 '' Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall from 20 the tree. An observation of yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea." " Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?" 25 " That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them — and yet it is . dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd — if Kidd indeed 30 secreted this treasure, which I doubt not — it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But 64 THE GOLD BUG this labor concluded, he may have thought it expe- f '^ dient to remove all participants in his secret. Per- haps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen — who shall tell?^^ 'SlWi English Classic Series-continued. 68 The Antlirone of SophoolM. English Vergion by Thos. Franck- lin, D.D. 64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, (Selected Poems.) 66 Robert Browning. (Selected Poems.) 66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec^ns.) 67 Scenes from George Bllot's Adam Bede. 68 Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarch J. 69 DeQuincey's Joan of Are. 70 Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil- grimage. 72 Poe's Raven, and other Poems. 73 & 74 Macaulay's I-ord CUve. (Double Number.) 75 Webster's Reply to Hayne. 76&77 Macaulay's I^ays of An- cient Rome. (Double Number.) 78 American Patriotic Selections: Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Ad- dress, liincoln's Gettysburg Speech, etc. 79 & 80 Scott's liady of the Lake. (Condensed.) 81 & S2 Scott's Marmlon. (Con- densed.) 83 & 84 Pope's Essay on Man. 85 Shelley's Skylark, AdonalSy and other Poems. 86 Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth. 87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style* 88 Liamb's Essays of Elia. 89 Cowper's Task, Book II, 90 \yordsworth's Selected Poems, 91 Tt nnyson's The Holy Grail, and Sir Galahad. 93 Addison's Cato. 93 Irving' s Westminster Abbey^ and Christmas Sketches. 94 & 95 Macaulay's Earl .of Chat- ham. Second Essay. 96 Early English Ballads. 97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey* (Selected Poems.) 98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 99 C ax ton and Daniel. (Selections.) 100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con. densed.) 109-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- ton. 104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- dison, 106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- well's Johnson. 107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- cliffe's Bible. (Selections.) 108-109 Macaulay's Essay on Fred- erick the Great. 110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- tes. t 113-113-114 Franklin's Autobiog- raphy. 115-116 Herodotus's Storieij of Croesus, Cyrus, and Babylen, 117 Irving' s Alhambra. 118 Burke's Present Discontents. 119 Burke's Speech on Concilia- tion with American Colonies, 120 Macaulay's Essay on Byron. 131-132 Motley's Peter the Great. 123 Emerson's American Scholar. 124 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 125-126 LiOngfellow's Evangeline. 127 Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. (Selected.) 128 Tennyson's The Coming of, Arthur, and The Passing of Arthur. 129 Lowell's The Vision of Sir liaunfal, and other Poems. 130 Whittier's Songs of Ijabor, and other Poems. 131 Words of Abraham liinooln, 132 Grimm's German Fairy Tales* (Selected.) 133 .aisop's Fables. (Selected.) 134 Arabian Nights. Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, 135-36 The Psalter. 137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con- densed.) 139-40 Scott's Kenilworth. (Con- densed.) 141-42 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- densed.) 143 Gods and Heroes of the North, 144-45 Pope's Iliad of Homer. (Selections from Books I.-VIII.) 146 Four Medifeval Chroniclers. 147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised Version.) 150 Bow- Wow and Mew-Mew. By Georgiana M. Craik. 151 The NUrnberg Stove. ByOuida. 152 Hayne's Speech. To which Webster replied. 153 Alice's Adventures in Won- derland. (Condensed.) By Lewis Carroll. 154-155 Defoe's Journal of the Plague. (Condensed.) 156-157 More's Utopia. (Con- densed.) ADDITIONAL NUMBERS ON NEXT PAGE. English Classic Ser/es-continued. 158-159 Iiamb'f Essays. (Selec- tions.) 160-161 Burke's Reflections on the French KcTolution. 162-163 Macaulay's History of England, Chapter I. Complete. 164-165-166 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. (Condensed.) 167 liongfellow's Voices of the Night, and other poems. 168 Hawthorne's Wonder Book. Selected Tales. 169 DeQuiucey's Flight of a Tar- tar Tribe. Complete. 170-1 71-1 7JJ George £iiot's Silas ,«,« J^arner. Complete. 173 Buskin's King of the Golden River, and Bame Wiggins of r.ee and her Seven Wonderful Cats. 174-176 Irving's Tales of a Trav- eler. 176 Ruskin's Of Kings' Treasuries. First half of Sesame and Lilies. Complete. 177 Ruskin's Of Queens' Gardens. Second half of Sesame and Lilies. Complete. 178 Macaulay's I.lfe of Johnson. 179-180 Befoe's Robinson Cieusoe. 181-183-183 Wykes's Shakespeare Reader. 184 Hawthorne's Grand father's Chair. Part I. Complete. 185-186 Southey's Life of Nelson. Condensed. 187 Curtis's The Public Buty of Educated Men. 188-189 Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. Selected. 190-191 Chesterfield's I^etters to His Son. 193 English and American Son- nets. 193 Emerson's Self-Reliance. 194 Emerson's Compensation. 195-196 Tennyson's The Princess. 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