Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851

Scarcely appreciating the force of his parable, and thinking of nothing save the vindication of my honor, I muttered a few unmeaning words, and withdrew, glad to escape a presence which had assumed, to my terrified senses, all the diabolical subtlety of satanic influence. Trusting that no future accident of my life should ever bring me within such precincts, I hurried from the place as though it were contaminated and plague-stricken.

CHAPTER XLVII.

"THE VILLAGE OF SCHWARTZ-ACH."

I was destitute enough when I quitted the "Temple," a few days back; but my condition now was sadder still, for in addition to my poverty and friendlessness, I had imbibed a degree of distrust and suspicion that made me shun my fellow-men, and actually shrink from the contact of a stranger. The commonest show of courtesy, the most ordinary exercise of politeness, struck me as the secret wiles of that police, whose machinations, I fancied, were still spread around me. I had conceived a most intense hatred of civilization, or, at least, of what I rashly supposed to be the inherent vices of civilized life. I longed for what I deemed must be the glorious independence of a savage. If I could but discover this Paradise beyond seas, of which the marquise raved so much; if I only could find out that glorious land which neither knew secret intrigues nor conspiracies, I should leave France forever, taking any condition, or braving any mischances fate might have in store for me.

There was something peculiarly offensive in the treatment I had met with. Imprisoned on suspicion, I was liberated without any "amende;" neither punished like a guilty man, nor absolved as an innocent one. I was sent out upon the world as though the state would not own nor acknowledge me; a dangerous practice, as I often thought, if only adopted on a large scale. It was some days before I could summon resolution to ascertain exactly my position: at last I did muster up courage, and under pretense of wishing to address a letter to myself, I applied at the Ministry of War for the address of Lieutenant Tiernay, of the 9th Hussars. I was one of a large crowd similarly engaged, some inquiring for sons that had fallen in battle, or husbands or fathers in far away countries. The office was only open each morning for two hours, and consequently, as the expiration of the time drew nigh, the eagerness of the inquirers became far greater, and the contrast with the cold apathy of the clerks the more strongly marked. I had given way to many, who were weaker than myself, and less able to buffet with the crowd about them; and at last, when, wearied by waiting, I was drawing nigh the table, my attention was struck by an old, a very old man, who, with a beard white as snow, and long mustaches of the same color, was making great efforts to gain the front rank. I stretched out my hand, and caught his, and by considerable exertion, at last succeeded in placing him in front of me.

He thanked me fervently, in a strange kind of German, a patois I had never heard before, and kissed my hand three or four times over in his gratitude; indeed, so absorbed was he for the time in his desire to thank me, that I had to recall him to the more pressing reason of his presence, and warn him that but a few minutes more of the hour remained free.

"Speak up," cried the clerk, as the old man muttered something in a low and very indistinct voice; "speak up; and remember, my friend, that we do not profess to give information further back than the times of 'Louis Quatorze.'"

This allusion to the years of the old man was loudly applauded by his colleagues, who drew nigh to stare at the cause of it.

"Sacre bleu! he is talking Hebrew," said another, "and asking for a friend who fell at Ramoth Gilead."

"He is speaking German," said I, peremptorily, "and asking for a relative whom he believes to have embarked with the expedition to Egypt."

"Are you a sworn interpreter, young man?" asked an older and more consequential-looking personage.

I was about to return a hasty reply to this impertinence, but I thought of the old man, and the few seconds that still remained for his inquiry, and I smothered my anger, and was silent.

"What rank did he hold?" inquired one of the clerks, who had listened with rather more patience to the old man. I translated the question for the peasant, who, in reply, confessed that he could not tell. The youth was his only son, and had left home many years before, and never written. A neighbor, however, who had traveled in foreign parts, had brought tidings that he had gone with the expedition to Egypt, and was already high in the French army.

"You are not quite certain that he did not command the army of Egypt?" said one of the clerks in mockery of the old man's story.

"It is not unlikely," said the peasant gravely, "he was a brave and bold youth, and could have lifted two such as you with one hand and hurled you out of that window."

"Let us hear his name once more," said the elder clerk; "it is worth remembering."

"I have told you already. It was Karl Kleber."

"The General – General Kleber!" cried three or four in a breath.

"Mayhap," was all the reply.

"And are you the father of the great general of Egypt?" asked the elder, with an air of deep respect.

"Kleber is my son; and so that he is alive and well, I care little if a general or simple soldier."

Not a word was said in answer to this speech, and each seemed to feel reluctant to tell the sad tidings. At last the elder clerk said, "You have lost a good son, and France one of her greatest captains. The General Kleber is dead."

"Dead!" said the old man, slowly.

"In the very moment of his greatest glory, too, when he had won the country of the Pyramids, and made Egypt a colony of France."

"When did he die? said the peasant.

"The last accounts from the East brought the news; and this very day the Council of State has accorded a pension to his family of ten thousand livres."

"They may keep their money. I am all that remains, and have no want of it; and I should be poorer still before I'd take it."

These words he uttered in a low, harsh tone, and pushed his way back though the crowd.

One moment more was enough for my inquiry.

"Maurice Tiernay, of the 9th —destitué," was the short and stunning answer I received.

"Is there any reason alleged – is there any charge imputed to him?" asked I, timidly.

"Ma foi! you must go to the Minister of War with that question. Perhaps he was pay-master, and embezzled the funds of the regiment; perhaps he liked royalist gold better than republican silver; or perhaps he preferred the company of the baggage-train and the 'ambulances,' when he should have been at the head of his squadron."

I did not care to listen longer to this impertinence, and making my way out I gained the street. The old peasant was still standing there, like one stunned and overwhelmed by some great shock, and neither heeding the crowd that passed, nor the groups that halted occasionally to stare at him.

"Come along with me," said I, taking his hand in mine. "Your calamity is a heavy one, but mine is harder to bear up against."

He suffered himself to be led away like a child, and never spoke a word as we walked along toward the "barriere," beyond which, at a short distance, was a little ordinary, where I used to dine. There we had our dinner together, and as the evening wore on the old man rallied enough to tell me of his son's early life, and his departure for the army. Of his great career I could speak freely, for Kleber's name was, in soldier esteem, scarcely second to that of Bonaparte himself. Not all the praises I could bestow, however, were sufficient to turn the old man from his stern conviction, that a peasant in the "Lech Thal" was a more noble and independent man than the greatest general that ever marched to victory.

"We have been some centuries there," said he, "and none of our name has incurred a shadow of disgrace. Why should not Karl have lived like his ancestors?"

It was useless to appeal to the glory his son had gained – the noble reputation he had left behind him. The peasant saw in the soldier but one who hired out his courage and his blood, and deemed the calling a low and unworthy one. I suppose I was not the first who, in the effort to convince another, found himself shaken in his own convictions; for I own before I lay down that night many of the old man's arguments assumed a force and power that I could not resist, and held possession of my mind even after I fell asleep. In my dreams I was once more beside the American lake, and that little colony of simple people, where I had seen all that was best of my life, and learned the few lessons I had ever received of charity and good-nature.

From what the peasant said, the primitive habits of the Lech Thal must be almost like those of that little colony, and I willingly assented to his offer to accompany him in his journey homeward. He seemed to feel a kind of satisfaction in turning my thoughts away from a career that he held so cheaply, and talked enthusiastically of the tranquil life of the Bregenzer-wald.

We left Paris the following morning, and, partly by diligence, partly on foot, reached Strassburg in a few days; thence we proceeded by Kehel to Freyburg, and, crossing the Lake of Constance at Rorsbach, we entered the Bregenzer-wald on the twelfth morning of our journey. I suppose that most men preserve fresher memory of the stirring and turbulent scenes of their lives than of the more peaceful and tranquil ones, and I shall not be deemed singular when I say, that some years passed over me in this quiet spot and seemed as but a few weeks. The old peasant was the "Vorsteher," or ruler of the village, by whom all disputes were settled, and all litigation of an humble kind decided – a species of voluntary jurisdiction maintained to this very day in that primitive region. My occupation there was as a species of secretary to the court, an office quite new to the villagers, but which served to impress them more reverentially than ever in favor of this rude justice. My legal duties over, I became a vine-dresser, a wood-cutter, or a deer-stalker, as season and weather dictated. My evenings being always devoted to the task of a schoolmaster. A curious seminary was it, too, embracing every class from childhood to advanced age, all eager for knowledge, and all submitting to the most patient discipline to attain it. There was much to make me happy in that humble lot. I had the love and esteem of all around me; there was neither a harassing doubt for the future, nor the rich man's contumely to oppress me; my life was made up of occupations which alternately engaged mind and body, and, above all and worth all besides, I had a sense of duty, a feeling that I was doing that which was useful to my fellow-men; and however great may be a man's station in life, if it want this element, the humblest peasant that rises to his daily toil has a nobler and a better part.

As I trace these lines how many memories of the spot are rising before me! Scenes I had long forgotten – faces I had ceased to remember! And now I see the little wooden bridge – a giant tree, guarded by a single rail, that crossed the torrent in front of our cottage; and I behold once more the little waxen image of the Virgin over the door, in whose glass shrine at nightfall a candle ever burned! and I hear the low hum of the villagers' prayer as the Angelus is singing, and see on every crag or cliff the homebound hunter kneeling in his deep devotion!

Happy people, and not less good than happy! Your bold and barren mountains have been the safeguard of your virtue and your innocence! Long may they prove so, and long may the waves of the world's ambition be staid at their rocky feet!

I was beginning to forget all that I had seen of life, or, if not forget, at least to regard it as a wild and troubled dream, when an accident, one of those things we always regard as the merest chances, once more opened the flood-gates of memory, and sent the whole past in a strong current through my brain.

In this mountain region the transition from winter to summer is effected in a few days. Some hours of a scorching sun and south wind swell the torrents with melted snow; the icebergs fall thundering from cliff and crag, and the sporting waterfall once more dashes over the precipice. The trees burst into leaf, and the grass springs up green and fresh from its wintry covering; and from the dreary aspect of snow-capped hills and leaden clouds, nature changes to fertile plains and hills, and a sky of almost unbroken blue.

It was on a glorious evening in April, when all these changes were passing, that I was descending the mountain above our village after a hard day's chamois hunting. Anxious to reach the plain before nightfall, I could not, however, help stopping from time to time to watch the golden and ruby tints of the sun upon the snow, or see the turquoise blue which occasionally marked the course of a rivulet through the glaciers. The Alp-horn was sounding from every cliff and height, and the lowing of the cattle swelled into a rich and mellow chorus. It was a beautiful picture, realizing in every tint and hue, in every sound and cadence, all that one can fancy of romantic simplicity, and I surveyed it with a swelling and a grateful heart.

As I turned to resume my way, I was struck by the sound of voices speaking, as I fancied, in French, and before I could settle the doubt with myself, I saw in front of me a party of some six or seven soldiers, who, with their muskets slung behind them, were descending the steep path by the aid of sticks.

Weary-looking and foot-sore as they were, their dress, their bearing, and their soldier-like air, struck me forcibly, and sent into my heart a thrill I had not known for many a day before. I came up quickly behind them, and could overhear their complaints at having mistaken the road, and their maledictions, muttered in no gentle spirit, on the stupid mountaineers who could not understand French.

"Here comes another fellow, let us try him," said one, as he turned and saw me near. "Schwartz-Ach, Schwartz-Ach," added he, addressing me, and reading the name from a slip of paper in his hand.

"I am going to the village," said I, in French, "and will show the way with pleasure."

"How! what! are you a Frenchman, then?" cried the corporal, in amazement.

"Even so," said I.

"Then by what chance are you living in this wild spot? How, in the name of wonder, can you exist here?"

"With venison like this," said I, pointing to a chamois buck on my shoulder, "and the red wine of the Lech Thal, a man may manage to forget Veray's and the "Dragon Vert," particularly as they are not associated with a bill and a waiter!"

"And perhaps you are a royalist," cried another, "and don't like how matters are going on at home?"

"I have not that excuse for my exile," said I, coldly.

"Have you served, then?"

I nodded.

"Ah, I see," said the corporal, "you grew weary of parade and guard mounting."

"If you mean that I deserted," said I, "you are wrong there also; and now let it be my turn to ask a few questions. What is France about? Is the Republic still as great and victorious as ever?"

"Sacre bleu, man, what are you thinking of? We are an Empire some years back, and Napoleon has made as many kings as he has got brothers and cousins to crown."

"And the army, where is it?"

"Ask for some half dozen armies, and you'll still be short of the mark. We have one in Hamburg, and another in the far North, holding the Russians in check; we have garrisons in every fortress of Prussia and the Rhine Land; we have some eighty thousand fellows in Poland and Gallicia; double as many more in Spain; Italy is our own, and so will be Austria ere many days go over."

Boastfully as all this was spoken, I found it to be not far from truth, and learned, as we walked along, that the emperor was, at that very moment, on the march to meet the Archduke Charles, who, with a numerous army, was advancing on Ratisbon, the little party of soldiers being portion of a force dispatched to explore the passes of the "Voralberg," and report on how far they might be practicable for the transmission of troops to act on the left flank and rear of the Austrian army. Their success had up to this time been very slight, and the corporal was making for Schwartz-Ach, as a spot where he hoped to rendezvous with some of his comrades. They were much disappointed on my telling them that I had quitted the village that morning, and that not a soldier had been seen there. There was, however, no other spot to pass the night in, and they willingly accepted the offer I made them of a shelter and a supper in our cottage.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

VAGARIES OF THE IMAGINATION

"Fancy it burgundy," said Boniface of his ale, "only fancy it, and it is worth a guinea a quart!" Boniface was a philosopher: fancy can do much more than that. Those who fancy themselves laboring under an affection of the heart are not slow in verifying the apprehension: the uneasy and constant watching of its pulsations soon disturbs the circulation, and malady may ensue beyond the power of medicine. Some physicians believe that inflammation can be induced in any part of the body by a fearful attention being continually directed toward it; indeed it has been a question with some whether the stigmata (the marks of the wounds of our Saviour) may not have been produced on the devotee by the influences of an excited imagination. The hypochondriac has been known to expire when forced to pass through a door which he fancied too narrow to admit his person. The story of the criminal who, unconscious of the arrival of the reprieve, died under the stroke of a wet handkerchief, believing it to be the ax, is well known. Paracelsus held, "that there is in man an imagination which really effects and brings to pass the things that did not before exist; for a man by imagination willing to move his body moves it in fact, and by his imagination and the commerce of invisible powers he may also move another body." Paracelsus would not have been surprised at the feats of electro-biology. He exhorts his patients to have "a good faith, a strong imagination, and they shall find the effects. All doubt," he says, "destroys work, and leaves it imperfect in the wise designs of nature; it is from faith that imagination draws its strength, it is by faith it becomes complete and realized; he who believeth in nature will obtain from nature to the extent of his faith, and let the object of this faith be real or imaginary, he nevertheless reaps similar results – and hence the cause of superstition."

So early as 1462, Pomponatus of Mantua came to the conclusion, in his work on incantation, that all the arts of sorcery and witchcraft were the result of natural operations. He conceived that it was not improbable that external means, called into action by the soul, might relieve our sufferings, and that there did, moreover, exist individuals endowed with salutary properties; so it might, therefore, be easily conceived that marvelous effects should be produced by the imagination and by confidence, more especially when these are reciprocal between the patient and the person who assists his recovery. Two years after, the same opinion was advanced by Agrippa in Cologne. "The soul," he said, "if inflamed by a fervent imagination, could dispense health and disease, not only in the individual himself, but in other bodies." However absurd these opinions may have been considered, or looked on as enthusiastic, the time has come when they will be gravely examined.

That medical professors have at all times believed the imagination to possess a strange and powerful influence over mind and body is proved by their writings, by some of their prescriptions, and by their oft-repeated direction in the sick-chamber to divert the patient's mind from dwelling on his own state and from attending to the symptoms of his complaint. They consider the reading of medical books which accurately describe the symptoms of various complaints as likely to have an injurious effect, not only on the delicate but on persons in full health; and they are conscious how many died during the time of the plague and cholera, not only of these diseases but from the dread of them, which brought on all the fatal symptoms. So evident was the effect produced by the detailed accounts of the cholera in the public papers in the year 1849, that it was found absolutely necessary to restrain the publications on the subject. The illusions under which vast numbers acted and suffered have gone, indeed, to the most extravagant extent: individuals, not merely singly but in communities, have actually believed in their own transformation. A nobleman of the court of Louis XIV. fancied himself a dog, and would pop his head out of the window to bark at the passengers; while the barking disease at the camp-meetings of the Methodists of North America has been described as "extravagant beyond belief." Rollin and Hecquet have recorded a malady by which the inmates of an extensive convent near Paris were attacked simultaneously every day at the same hour, when they believed themselves transformed into cats, and a universal mewing was kept up throughout the convent for some hours. But of all dreadful forms which this strange hallucination took, none was so terrible as that of the lycanthropy, which at one period spread through Europe; in which the unhappy sufferers, believing themselves wolves, went prowling about the forests, uttering the most terrific howlings, carrying off lambs from the flocks, and gnawing dead bodies in their graves.

While every day's experience adds some new proof of the influence possessed by the imagination over the body, the supposed effect of contagion has become a question of doubt. Lately, at a meeting in Edinburgh, Professor Dick gave it as his opinion that there was no such thing as hydrophobia in the lower animals: "what went properly by that name was simply an inflammation of the brain; and the disease, in the case of human beings, was caused by an over-excited imagination, worked upon by the popular delusion on the effects of a bite by rabid animals." The following paragraph from the "Curiosities of Medicine" appears to justify this now common enough opinion: – "Several persons had been bitten by a rabid dog in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and three of them had died in our hospital. A report, however, was prevalent that we kept a mixture which would effectually prevent the fatal termination; and no less than six applicants who had been bitten were served with a draught of colored water, and in no one instance did hydrophobia ensue."

A remarkable cure through a similar aid of the imagination took place in a patient of Dr. Beddoes, who was at the time very sanguine about the effect of nitrous acid gas in paralytic cases. Anxious that it should be imbibed by one of his patients, he sent an invalid to Sir Humphry Davy, with a request that he would administer the gas. Sir Humphry put the bulb of the thermometer under the tongue of the paralytic, to ascertain the temperature of the body, that he might be sure whether it would be affected at all by the inhalation of the gas. The patient, full of faith from what the enthusiastic physician had assured him would be the result, and believing that the thermometer was what was to effect the cure, exclaimed at once that he felt better. Sir Humphry, anxious to see what imagination would do in such a case, did not attempt to undeceive the man, but saying that he had done enough for him that day, desired him to be with him the next morning. The thermometer was then applied as it had been the day before, and for every day during a fortnight – at the end of which time the patient was perfectly cured.

Perhaps there is nothing on record more curious of this kind than the cures unwittingly performed by Chief-justice Holt. It seems that for a youthful frolic he and his companions had put up at a country inn; they, however, found themselves without the means of defraying their expenses, and were at a loss to know what they should do in such an emergency. Holt, however, perceived that the innkeeper's daughter looked very ill, and on inquiring what was the matter, learned that she had the ague; when, passing himself off for a medical student, he said that he had an infallible cure for the complaint. He then collected a number of plants, mixed them up with various ceremonies, and inclosed them in parchment, on which he scrawled divers cabalistic characters. When all was completed, he suspended the amulet round the neck of the young woman, and, strange to say, the ague left her and never returned. The landlord, grateful for the restoration of his daughter, not only declined receiving any payment from the youths, but pressed them to remain as long as they pleased. Many years after, when Holt was on the bench, a woman was brought before him, charged with witchcraft: she was accused of curing the ague by charms. All she said in defense was, that she did possess a ball which was a sovereign remedy in the complaint. The charm was produced and handed to the judge, who recognized the very ball which he had himself compounded in his boyish days, when out of mere fun he had assumed the character of a medical practitioner.