Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.18 #107 (Apr 1859).
I am what is vulgarly, if not profanely, denominated a "poor-devil author."
The clock had just struck nine as my pen gave the last stroke to Chapter One Hundred and Twelve of the "Hobgoblin Husband," a thrilling tale which I contribute hebdomadally to the Bunkum Weekly. By my side lay the unfinished manuscript of that scathing treatise on the Political Tendencies of the Gulf Stream, which subsequently attracted such general attention in the Arctic Review.
Withdrawing my mind momentarily from its preoccupation, I observed that my grate wanted coals—an observation whose correctness was confirmed by a shivering sensation in my limbs.
Rousing myself to the effort which the emergency demanded, I arose from my seat and, my room being unprovided with a bell, went to the door, opened it, stepped out into the hall, leaned over the baluster, and was just inflating my lungs to shout "Bridget!"
I should, however, remark parenthetically that my room was Number Five of the attic of Mrs. McScrewby's boarding-house, on Bleecker Street, near Avenue A. The other occupants had, two hours before, gone out singly and in groups to the theatre or cheaper places of amusement. Unwonted, almost fearful, silence reigned—a silence that was rendered the more impressive by the fact that the fifth story, immediately below, was equally quiet.
I was, as I before intimated, about to break this silence by shouting "Bridget!" when the intended action of my vocal organs was prevented by a sound which just then saluted my ears. That sound was a violent and obstreperous cachinnation. It was not precisely a horse-laugh; I am unable zoologically to classify it. It broke abruptly upon the stillness with no apparent cause or sequence, and seemed to leave a strange quiver in the succeeding silence.
I had just convinced myself that it was but the product of my own brain, over-excited by the thrilling conceptions just embodied in Chapter One Hundred and Twelve aforesaid, when I again heard it more distinctly than before. Although decidedly masculine in tone, it yet forcibly reminded me of the refrain heard by Jane Eyre in the desolate chambers of Thornfield; and I stared in uneasy apprehension of seeing Grace Poole with her pot of porter, or the livid Mrs. Rochester herself, stalk forth from some attic room in Mrs. McScrewby's boarding-house.
"Ha! ha! ha!"
This time. it was deep, resonant, and hollow, as though forced from the depths of an empty stomach. I fancied that the Demon of Starvation might be exulting over the carcass of some of my unfortunate fellow-attics—perhaps Brown, the unpublished poet in Number Three, or Smithio, the gaunt artist in Number Nine.
"Ha! ha! ha—a—a!"
Sonorous and prolonged, like the jubilant howl of a wolf that has just concluded a repast on some unusually toothsome traveler.
I confess that I was frightened. I felt the capillary covering of my head rise and stand in serried array around its bald apex. A chill crept through the marrow of my bones—if, indeed, the bones of a poor devil author can, even figuratively, be said to contain marrow.
I at length perceived that the strange sounds originated in Number Eight—Jones's room.
I knew nothing whatever of Jones, except that his inky fingers and untidy aspect had convinced me that he belonged to the literary profession. The settled gloom of his countenance and compression of his bloodless lips, together with a strange twinkle in his eye, had given me the impression that he was harboring some dreadful purpose. I had always instinctively shrunk from Jones.
Now, however, fully determined to learn the source and nature of these mysterious explosions, I proceeded to Number Eight. The door stood open, and I timidly looked in. There sat Jones in his solitary chair before the empty grate, habited only in a ragged dressing-gown. He held a newspaper before his eyes, and would alternately read something therein and give utterance to a yell of laughter.
Thinking him intoxicated, I was about to retire, when, seeing me, he rushed forward to greet me.
"Ah! come in, Mr. Podhammer! Delighted to see you! Come to congratulate me, I suppose? Happiest moment of my life! He's done for—yes, he's done for at last! Ha! ha! ha!"
"Who's done for?" I asked, bewildered.
"Ah! true, you don't know. Read that. Ha! ha! ha!"
Thrusting into my hand an evening paper, he pointed to an obituary notice:
"Death of an Editor.—We regret to have to announce the demise of Archibald Pippin, Esq., the late well-known and accomplished editor of Bullion's Monthly. He has been for some time declining, and expired last evening."
Here followed a eulogium on the talents and virtues of the deceased.
"Been some time declining! Ha! ha! ha! Sit down, dear fellow, and I'll tell you the whole, confidentially."
I would gladly have retreated, but Jones had button-holed me, and placed himself between me and the door. So, with the best grace possible, I sat down on the bed. He rubbed his hands together, and laughed again; but then, with an effort, became quiet, sat down in the chair, drew it in front of me, leaned forward until his glaring eyes almost touched mine, and began:
"Sir, I was born a genius. I manifested that genius, when not yet out of my cradle, by crying only in poetic feet. I made verses before I could talk distinctly, and was an acknowledged poet at six years of age.
"When I reached manhood my productions were the delight of my native State—I am a native of an Eastern State, Sir. They were eagerly sought for and lauded by the editors of the Oriental Palladium, the Massachusetts Bay Miscellany, and the Ladies' Literary Monthly. Poetry gushed spontaneously from my inkstand. No subject was too lofty or too profound for my prose. I dwelt in a heaven of inspiration, Sir, from which I looked down with placid contempt on the puny efforts of those whom the world calls great.
"It is ever a necessity of genius to love and be loved. It was my fate to adore Arabella Muggins—an angelic creature, with languishing blue eyes and glossy black ringlets—the daughter of a merchant in my native town. Arabella adored me in return. We plighted our mutual faith, and sought the paternal benediction.
"The sordid Muggins, insensible to the charms of poetry and the dignity of genius, called me a beggar, and forbade me, with threats of personal violence, ever again to visit his daughter.
"That night I formed a resolution. I managed to have an interview with Arabella, and communicated my resolution to her.
"'Arabella,' I said, 'your father accuses me, with truth, of being poor. There is here no adequate pecuniary reward for literary genius. Tomorrow I will go to New York, where wealth is the recompense of merit. I will write for the magazines, and receive the munificent sums which the publishers delight to lavish on contributors. I will produce books whose multiplied editions shall pour gold into my now empty pockets. I will purchase a villa on the Hudson, whose banks are dotted with the country seats of literary men. Then I will return, exhibit to your father the evidences of my opulence, and again sue for your hand. Think you he will then refuse me?'
"Arabella approved of my resolution.
"With one passionate embrace, the memory of which will ever haunt me, we bade each other—as we thought—a temporary adieu. Oh! what bliss then loomed up before me! It was all blasted by— But he's done for! Ha! ha! ha!
"I came to New York—it was just a year ago—took rooms, and devoted myself to intense literary labor. Even genius needs money. To supply my immediate necessities I prepared articles for the magazines. Having first devoted several hours to the study of my subject, I penned a trenchant satire on City Life. I also produced several poems, and a scathing review of Contemporaneous Literature. I took these to the office of Bullion's Monthly, inquired for the editor, and was ushered into the presence of Pippin.
"I conversed freely with Pippin, communicated to him something of my history, plans, and aspirations, and added some valuable suggestions with regard to the management of his magazine.
"Pippin said that, as a matter of form, it would be necessary to examine my manuscripts before paying for them, but promised to send me the money as soon as they should have been approved.
"I returned to my room and waited for the remittance, of which I stood in need, my landlady and laundress having suggested the payment of their bills.
"Three weeks passed, and the money came not.
"In the mean time my landlady and laundress had become urgent.
"Thinking the remittance might have miscarried, I decided to call upon Pippin. As I entered the office he quietly opened a drawer—to get my money, as I supposed. You may imagine my astonishment and indignation when he produced and handed to me my manuscript, on which was indorsed the word 'Declined!'
"My first impulse was to throttle Pippin. My second emotion was compassion for a man so lamentably destitute of literary appreciation. Bestowing upon him a glance of withering contempt, I left the office and carried the manuscripts to Pressman's Monthly. There they met the same fate.
"In the mean time my landlady and laundress had become clamorous.
"My articles were afterward successively rejected by Boggs's Monthly and Fizzle's Monthly.
"In the mean time my landlady and laundress had become belligerent, and I had been driven to change my quarters.
"During the months which had now elapsed I had not been idle. I had completed a book—a poem in forty cantos—a poem whose success I confidently expected would cause Milton and Shakspeare and Byron to rise from their graves out of sheer envy.
"With triumphant emotions I bore it to the publishing-house of Sheep and Calf, and left it for the inspection of their manuscript-reader.
"At the appointed time I called to complete the arrangements for its publication. Messrs. Sheep and Calf informed me that their manuscript-reader had reported unfavorably to my book.
"Under this unexpected blow I only found breath to demand, 'Who is your manuscript-reader?'
"'Archibald Pippin,' replied Sheep.
"'Pippin of Bullion's Monthly?'
"'The same,' said Calf.
"The whole mystery stood revealed.
"I rushed out into the darkness of gathering evening, and strode homeward. Torrents of rain deluged my head and streamed down my back, but could not cool the fever of indignation within. The object of that indignation was Pippin. Pippin, moved by base envy of superior genius, had first rejected my articles. Pippin had, doubtless, instigated other editors to do the same. Pippin had now committed his crowning outrage by condemning my book.
"I passed periodical dépôts where next month's magazines were for sale, filled with commonplace trash. That my brilliant productions were excluded was the work of Pippin. From book-sellers' windows gleamed, in crimson and gilt, the inferior works of weak authors. That my great poem had no publisher was due to Pippin. Other literary men were dwelling in the midst of luxury and breathing the incense of adulation while I, Adolphus Jones, was plodding, umbrellaless through the storm, to encounter the yet more formidable tempests of my unpaid and indignant landlady. For this I had to thank Pippin.
"I reached my cheerless room. On my table lay a letter from a correspondent in my native town. It informed me that Arabella, having waited six months for me to fulfill my promises to her, had at length yielded to her father's solicitations and become the wife of another.
"My cup of bitterness was full, my ambition crushed, my hopes blasted, my love blighted. Henceforth I could have but one object in life—revenge on Pippin. I tossed restlessly all that night, revolving plans for the attainment of my object, none of which were sufficiently certain and comprehensive. Toward morning—it may have been a dream—I thought a demon perched on my bedside, and whispered to me a suggestion. That suggestion I adopted, and arose at daybreak with a fully matured resolution—a resolution to the accomplishment of which I have since devoted every energy of my being. That resolution was—let me whisper it to you—to bore him to death!
"My modus operandi was to visit him frequently, provided with a liberal supply of manuscript. This I would read to him by the hour, under the pretext of asking his criticism or submitting it for his acceptance. I generally paid my visits to him about noon, the hour when the energies are beginning to flag after the labors of the morning, and prolonged them until I saw that he was reduced to an extreme point of irritability and exhaustion.
"Fortunately for my success, Pippin was a man of slender physical frame and highly sensitive nervous organization. I, on the other hand, was endowed by nature not only with iron nerves, but also with that peculiar pertinacity of purpose and fertility of resources so essential to the organism of a great and highly successful bore. You need not wonder, then, that I soon gained as complete ascendancy over Pippin as does the mesmerizer or psychologist over his subject, or the serpent over the bird which he is charming.
"Within a very few months I began to observe unequivocal tokens of my success in Pippin's increasingly haggard countenance and the look of ill-concealed terror with which he would greet my approach.
"Pippin did not yield to his fate without some struggles; but against a determination such as mine his struggles were impotent. When, driven to desperation, he gave orders that I should not be admitted, I gained access to him by means of ingenious disguises. When he changed his quarters I was sure to trace him unerringly and penetrate to his retreat. Not remorse or a bailiff ever dogged a victim more indefatigably than did I mine.
"Never did doting parent watch more eagerly the returning bloom on the countenance of an invalid child than did I the encroaching ravages of terror and anguish on the visage of Pippin. Oh! it was glorious to note the deepening and lengthening of the wrinkles, the sinking of his eye, the increasing concavity of his cheek. Never was trill at the Academy of Music such dulcet music to my ear as was the feeble, sepulchral tone with which he complained of loss of appetite, qualms, chills, vertigo, and sleepless nights.
"At length he took to his bed.
"Yesterday I called at his house. Lest I should not be admitted I hastened to his room without announcing my name. Assuring the anxious friends who surrounded his bed that I had come to amuse and divert him, I seated myself beside him and read forty pages of manuscript which I had prepared for the occasion. I then entered upon a detailed narration of my early history.
"When I had thus entertained him for several hours, I observed that his countenance became agitated with violent convulsive twitches. He asked in a scarcely audible voice, but with that mild intonation which always characterized him, if I would not defer the remainder of my interesting recital until another occasion. Assuring him that I was quite at leisure I continued my narrative.
"His countenance became yet more violently agitated, and his eye flashed with the lurid light of a just-expiring taper. He sprang from his bed and, with a sudden spasmodic movement of his hand, followed by several equally sudden movements of his foot, impelled me out of the room and down the stairs. He then bolted the door after me.
"I knew that exertion would be fatal to him.
"The next morning I met the undertaker coming from his house with a happy countenance. We grasped hands and rejoiced together.
"I carried the tidings to the evening paper and waited impatiently for its issue. I seized the first copy printed and bore it in triumph up Broadway. I read it aloud and shouted in my ecstasy. People stared at me and doubtless thought me mad. They little dreamed—"
At this moment the terror and disgust excited in me by Jones's recital reached its climax. The malicious gleam which his eye shot into mine filled me with a shuddering apprehension that he was about to repeat upon me the horrid experiment whose success had filled him with such fiendish exultation. The bare idea caused my flesh to creep and my bones to quiver.
Suddenly thrusting him away with a violent effort I made a rush for the door. Winged by fear I fled through the hall, overthrowing several of the boarders who were just returning to their rooms. I reached my apartment in safety and bolted the door behind me. I dreamed fearful dreams all night, from which I would awake with the terrible expectation of seeing Jones seated beside me, intent on boring me to death.
When I arose in the morning I found that three hairs in my left whisker had turned from their original red to snowy whiteness.
I immediately removed to the attic of another boarding-house.