Zadig, or the Book of Fate (1747), is Voltaire’s first novella of ideas, and, although it lacks the inexorability of its disciplined younger brother C Zadig, or the Book of Fate (1747), is Voltaire’s first novella of ideas, and, although it lacks the inexorability of its disciplined younger brother Candide (1759), it shares its comic vision and realistic assessment of the world. Featuring a cast of Babylonians, Egyptians, and Arabs, Zadig clearly takes for its model the Oriental tale—Galland’s French translation of The Arabian Nights had been completed in 1717—which was already famous for its marvelous incidents and episodic from. Part conte philosophique, part apologue, and part picaresque adventure (with a bit of the detective story and Solomonic wisdom tale thrown in), Zadig never ceases to entertain.
The novella relates the adventures of Zadig, a shrewd, bright honest young man who experiences the vicissitudes of life: he becomes, in turn, a betrayed husband, a prisoner, a prime minister, a slave, a robber gang’s prisoner, a knight in shining armor, a fake physician, the companion of a hermit (who turns out to be angel) and, finally, the King of Babylon.
Zadig continues to seek for a pattern in the good and the evil, in the up-and-down, of life. Jesrad (the angel disguised as a hermit) gives him the closest thing he ever gets to an explantion:
”That great and first Cause has created an infinite Number of Worlds, and no two of them alike. This vast Variety is an Attribute of his Omnipotence. There are not two Leaves on the Trees throughout the Universe, nor any two Globes of Light amongst the Myriad of Stars that deck the infinite Expanse of Heaven, which are perfectly alike. And whatever you see on that small Atom of Earth, whereof you are a Native, must exist in the Place, and at the Time appointed, according to the immutable Decrees of him who comprehends the Whole …. Frail Mortal! Cease to contend with what you ought to adore.” “But, said Zadig — whilst the Sound of the Word “But” dwelt upon his Tongue, the Angel took his Flight towards the tenth Sphere. Zadig sunk down upon his Knees, and acknowledg’d an over-ruling Providence with all the Marks of the profoundest Submission. The Angel, as he was soaring towards the Clouds, cried out in distinct Accents: “Make thy Way towards Babylon.”
First published in United States Magazine and Democratic Review (September, 1838), this plotless narrative presents the fictional reminisces of an iti First published in United States Magazine and Democratic Review (September, 1838), this plotless narrative presents the fictional reminisces of an itinerant monument carver. Although it could be seen as little more than a vignette, its gothic theme and the aptness of its philosophical reflections make it a characteristic Hawthorne piece.
I was first struck by the fitness of this early passage. The narrator takes a walk through the rocky New England graveyard to comment on the nature of the Colonial headstones, and tells us this is a cemetery “where the dead have lain so long that the soil, once enriched by their decay, has returned to its original barrenness.” What a pity that even the last gift we give to the earth is as ephemeral as the rest!
Wigglesworth the tombstone carver spins story after story, about grieving husbands and practical wives, about sickly young maidens and hearty old skinflints who live long enough to bury their business rivals, and each of his stories shows us how we humans continue to live on, how our species continues to demonstrate its humanity even in its commerce with death.
When Wigglesworth ask the narrator what stone he would pick for himself, he answers:
”I care little or nothing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat inclined to scepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all, over the dust that once was human. The weight of these heavy marbles, though unfelt by the dead corpse or the enfranchised soul, presses drearily upon the spirit of the survivor, and causes him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with the freedom of the skies. Every grave-stone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system. Our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly--not linger with the exuviae that confined him. In truth and reason, neither those whom we call the living, and still less the departed, have any thing to do with the grave.”
First published in The New England Magazine (June, 1835), this is one of the most romantic and ominous of Hawthorne’s moral tales. It was based on a r First published in The New England Magazine (June, 1835), this is one of the most romantic and ominous of Hawthorne’s moral tales. It was based on a real event, known as the Willey Tragedy: in 1826, in Crawford’s Notch, New Hampshire, seven members of the Willey Family and their two hired men were buried in an avalanche precipitated by a violent rain.
Hawthorne decides not to concentrate on the disaster, but on the period immediately before it. He eliminates the two hired men, but adds a young visitor to the Willey’s rough inn: the “ambitious guest” of the title. After dinner, this young man, although does not care about being famous while he lives, confides that he wishes to be remembered after death for some great deed. “I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then, let Death come! I shall have built my monument!" Stirred by his confidences, members of the Willey Family express their final wishes too.
This conversation gives a particular dignity and poignancy to the inevitable catastrophe. The body of the poor young man is never identified, and Hawthorne ends his tale with this reflection:
“Wo for the high-souled youth, with his dream of Earthly Immortality! His name and person utterly unknown; his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved, his death and his existence equally a doubt!”
First published anonymously as “The Fountain of Youth” in the Knickerbocker or New York Monthly Magazine (1837), this story tells us of an experiment First published anonymously as “The Fountain of Youth” in the Knickerbocker or New York Monthly Magazine (1837), this story tells us of an experiment involving the effects of water obtained from the fabled fountain. Dr. Heidegger invites four superannuated acquaintances (Colonel Pettigrew the gouty roue, Mr. Medbourne the failed merchant/speculator, Mr Gascoigne the disgraced politician, and the Widow Wycherly, a once-celebrated beauty tarnished by scandal). The experiment? Offering all three the water of youth, and observing what effects it has upon them.
Superficially, this piece is not much different from any of Hawthorne’s early moral tales, but the precision with which the behavior of the four experimental subjects is described is memorable, and even more so is this wonderful gothic description of the old physician's study:
It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago, Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned, and said--"Forbear!"
Edgar Allan Poe liked this story, observing that it was "exceedingly well imagined and executed with surpassing ability" and that "the artist breathes in every line of it." No doubt the passage quoted above earned his most sincere admiration....more
First published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir of 1837, "David Swan" is a slight tale but a charming one.
It tells of the story of twenty-year-old First published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir of 1837, "David Swan" is a slight tale but a charming one.
It tells of the story of twenty-year-old David Swan who, weary of his foot-trek to the city of Boston where he plans to clerk in his uncle's grocery store, seeks shade beneath a maple, beside a brook, and falls immediately to sleep. During his nap, he undergoes three visitations--by an elderly couple, a pretty young girl, and a pair of villainous rascals--any of which could change his life forever.
This moral fable--which I think might better be termed a "moral fantasy"--is memorable for the way it takes a simple story, one that in other hands might be used to illustrate an obvious lesson, and instead offers it to the reader as something that may increase his sense of wonder by causing him to marvel at "the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen."...more
"The Great Carbuncle," first published in the New-England Magazine in 1835, is a pleasant but obvious allegory in which eight people--a "seeker," an a "The Great Carbuncle," first published in the New-England Magazine in 1835, is a pleasant but obvious allegory in which eight people--a "seeker," an alchemist, a cynic, a merchant, a poet, a wealthy nobleman, and two sweet little newlyweds--meet on a quest for the celebrated gem of the title.
Nothing in this story--not the exposition, not the conclusion--will surprise the discerning reader. Still, its heart is in the right place, and it is a tale well told....more
First published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir (1836), "The Minister's Black Veil" is not only Hawthorne's first great short story but also his fi First published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir (1836), "The Minister's Black Veil" is not only Hawthorne's first great short story but also his first representative masterpiece. It is a moral parable of sin and guilt embodied in a realistic 18th Century Puritan setting. The central conception of the tale is bizarre, with more than a hint of the gothic, yet the reader does not doubt that these New Englanders are real, that their moral struggles are as urgent as his own.
The story is simple: Reverend Hooper arrives for Sunday services one day wearing a black veil across his face, and from that day on until the day he dies he is never seen without that veil. Although the members of his congregation recoil or shun him, speculating about what ghastly personal sin has led him to walk thus among them, they come to realize that his veil is a sign of their own sinful natures. Hooper refuses to remove the veil, depriving himself of earthly love and enduring an ever more painful isolation. Is he a Christ symbol? A saint and a prophet? Merely a melancholy narcissist? Hawthorne narrator refuses to take sides, and the result is an ambiguous, resonant tale that belies its obvious imagery.
The Scarlet Letter is foreshadowed here: the Reverend Hooper is Dimmesdale's extrovert older brother. The later work, the novel, is richer and more complicated, but The Minister's Black Veil--particularly for its length--is filled with a depth and richness all its own.
(Now the "truth is stranger than fiction" part. The bizarre detail upon which the story is based may have been taken from real life. Joseph Moody, a pastor of York, Maine, wore a black silk hanky over his face for years. Three reasons have been suggested for his behavior: 1) he hated preaching (a profession father forced him into), 2) his true love rejected his marriage proposal, and 3) he was consumed with guilt over the killing of his best friend in a hunting accident. Whatever the truth, he received little respect from the home folks: the Mainers called him "Handkerchief Moody.")...more
Written in one week to defray the cost of his mother's funeral, Johnson's moral tale is a superior example of the prose of its era, and its era—the Ag Written in one week to defray the cost of his mother's funeral, Johnson's moral tale is a superior example of the prose of its era, and its era—the Age of Enlightenment—is renowned for the quality of its prose. It is true that Candide—written in 1759, the same year as Rasselas--excels Johnson's work in both wit and humor, but then Voltaire's task was much easier. He merely wished to demolish another man's philosophy, whereas Johnson wished to persuade his readers how to be happy.
Being happy wasn't easy for Johnson. He suffered from poor eyesight, facial scarring from scrofula, intense irritability, OCD, Tourette's, and thoughts of suicide. He also was afflicted with severe depression in his youth, so profoundly that—as he once told a friend--“he was sometimes so languid and inefficient that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.” How did he withstand such obstacles? By keeping his fancies and wishes private, applying himself assiduously to the task at hand, and enjoying whatever happiness arose from his labors.
It should be no surprise that Johnson's personal method is similar to the moral of his tale. When Rasselas of Abyssinia becomes discontented with “The Happy Valley,” where his every whim is catered to, he departs, with his sister, her companion, and his tutor to explore the condition of the world. The four of them have many adventures, experiencing much pleasure and pain, but nothing offers them real satisfaction (except for the enduring promise of heaven). After discoursing on various philosophical topics, they conclude that the greatest wisdom would be to return from where they came, embracing their destiny in “The Happy Valley'.
As a sample of Johnson's measured, deliberate prose, I offer the following excerpt from a discourse on the relative merits of the monastic and secular life:
Those men, answered Imlac, are less wretched in their silent convent than the Abissinian princes in their prison of pleasure. Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their labour supplies them with necessaries; it therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity, There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful, because they consider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing towards endless felicity.”
“Do you think, said Nekayah, that the monastick rule is a more holy and less imperfect state than any other? May not he equally hope for future happiness who converses openly with mankind, who succours the distressed by his charity, instructs the ignorant by his learning, and contributes by his industry to the general system of life; even though he should omit some of the mortifications which are practised in the cloister, and allow himself such harmless delights as his condition may place within his reach?”
“This, said Imlac, is a question which has long divided the wise, and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil. Many weary of their conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of man that, perhaps, there is scarcely one that does not purpose to close his life in pious abstraction with a few associates serious as himself.”...more
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