Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

did not understand it at all, and should depend upon a thorough satisfaction. I asked him to explain; assured him that he was disagreeably unintelligible; and that I was not aware he had ever belonged to our honorable body. Upon this, his anger waxed trebly terrible. I perceived that he was laboring under a delusion; and, unwilling to urge the matter to an unpleasant crisis, endeavored to divert his attention to different topics. I was successful, and from the conversation which ensued, gathered an idea of the state of mind in which he was existing. He was impressed with a belief, which I found it impossible to shake, that he was one of the founders, authors, and editors, of 'The Collegian!' I tried in vain to reason him out of the idea. I ridiculed him, I remonstrated, but nothing would do. He held fast by his delusion, and was cut to the heart by our cruel conduct. Our interview closed without coming to any thing decisive.

The countenance of Mr. Hock seemed to me from the first as one with which I was somewhat familiar. The description in the note to his article in the last number is unjust to his features. He has a very fair, open face, with gray eyes, and an aquiline nose; is about five feet eight inches in height, and treads firmly, though perhaps rather too rapidly. I am thus particular in the account of Mr. Hock, from the fact of his having lately disappeared from the vicinity. Such detailed descriptions of person I generally eschew; they should be left to the owners of runaway rogues, and the authors of fugitive novels.

I was struck by the resemblance of Mr. Hock to a figure, that by some previous dream or reality had possessed itself of my imagination. I was induced to pursue the subject; and by certain hints that were casually dropped, with some assistance from recollection and manuscript notes, was enabled to solve it to my entire satisfaction.

In the summer vacation of 1828, I was sojourning in a small village, some one hundred miles from the seat of our University. The only stranger beside myself in the neighborhood was a gentleman who had been residing there about a month, in a strict incognito. He was described to me as a very odd character, whom no one could understand; giving way to the strangest caprices and fantasies, and living in the most whimsical and bizarre style possible. I was determined to become acquainted with him, and carried my purpose immediately into execution.

After two or three vain attempts to obtain an introduction, I at length succeeded. I was conducted into a chamber furnished with considerable elegance, and proceeded with modest assurance to make acquaintance with the occupant. This was a man, rather below the middle stature, clad in very loose garments, and with a countenance on which the spirit of leanness had written a very legible autograph. His frame was the extreme of slimness and slenderness. I talked with him an hour or two, and found him exceedingly pleasant and amusing. He appeared to possess a very good knowledge of the current literature, and from some expressions dropped in the course of conversation, I ascertained that he had been something of a traveller. The day was a beautiful one, and as I like the fair fields and open sky better than confinement, it was very natural that I should propose a walk. He started back in astonishment, and demanded what could induce me to insult him by such a proposal.

I offered the sincerest apologies for my unintentional offence, and requested an explanation. He then told me that he had not left his chamber for a month; that the door and entry were so very narrow, that all egress for him was entirely out of the question, and that if his enormous bulk was not speedily diminished, he should perish of ennui, from the mere circumstance of imprisonment. I immediately became exceedingly indignant, assured the gentleman that I was entirely unaccustomed to such treatment, and that if he desired to indulge his propensity for hoaxing, he was to seek some more fit object than myself to operate upon. After mutual explanations and remonstrances, the quarrel was peaceably arranged without detriment to either party. My host was convinced that I had no intention of insulting him, and myself that some singular delusion had fastened on him.

And so indeed it was. He labored under the imagination of an accumulating corpulence. On this point, his mind was an incarnated and animated hyperbole. It was all manmountain with him. Nothing could shake in him the belief that he was approaching a hundred stone. He brooded over it, and grew unhappy upon it. He would not consent to attempt going out at the door, from his confidence that it would prove too small, and that he should be left so fastened in the passage as to be unable to move. I became quite well ac

quainted with him, and frequently repeated my visits to his lodgings. He still continued in his old delusion, for a considerable number of weeks. He would not be prevailed upon to stir from his chambers. At last he mysteriously disappeared. I never ascertained exactly how, though it must certainly have been in an astonishing hurry. This inference I draw from the fact, that it never occurred to him to speak to his landlady on the subject, or to settle her demands ; a matter that he otherwise would certainly have attended to, for he had insisted on having his bill made out in full every Saturday evening, and had sometimes incidentally spoken of payment.

All that he left behind him was a pocket-book, containing a great many papers of no use to any one but the owner. Among them were the following verses. They were written in bitter sincerity, and describe his feelings with a simple and affecting earnestness that cannot but be obvious to every reader. A large number of imperfect copies of them were circulated in the little village where he had resided, and in this manner they found their way into the public prints. I am pleased to present a correct version of them, printed from the author's original manuscript.

LAMENT.

I'm growing fat-I'm growing fat-I don't know how nor why, For on the little that I eat a very rat would die ;

For the life o' me I can't imagine, what can be the matter;

"T is hard-the more I starve myself, I'm sure to grow the fatter!

Time was a very short while since-when I was really lean,
A slimmer and genteeler man was no where to be seen;
Three little, little months ago-a thing that's vastly odd-I
Could number every single rib there was in all my body!

But now I'm plump, I'm very plump, I know few that are plumper,
My swelling cheeks are of the hue that stains a rosy bumper;
I always hated fat men, and I can't conceive why I-
Of all men living-should be doomed to such obesity!

Three little, little months ago!-The slippers which I wore
Stand mocking me, for I indeed shall never wear them more;
I try in vain with toil and pain to squeeze them neatly on-
Alas! I fear their services for e'er and aye are done.

My leg was very small indeed, the leg I wore in spring,
My arm and hand were very lean, my finger just the thing;
I've had to cast my coat aside, my stockings, and my gloves,
And part with all my pantaloons, and part with all my loves.

This thought is ever in my mind, and will not thence away,
"T is Daniel Lambert's ghost by night, and Daniel's self by day!
Then take the solemn chorus, and its mournful notes prolong,-
I'm growing fat, I'm growing fat, the burthen of my song!

Since the gentleman's sudden evanishment, I had never been able to discover a trace or vestige of him. But very lately I have had good reason to suspect that he may be identified in the person of Mr. Francis Hock. If this be the case, his late delusion is merely a new version of his old propensity; a novel play of his very lively imagination. If Mr. Hock is any where in the vicinity, I should be exceedingly gratified by the honor of another interview, or the favor of a private note, indicating where he is to be found.

CHARLES SHERRY.

CHARITY.

BY LUKE LOCKFAST.

WHEN I announced to the Club, that I had prepared for the second number an essay on Charity, which I would read them, blank grew the visages of my youthful compeers; and our worshipful editor, unable to contain himself, exclaimed, "Really, my dear Mr. Lockfast, this is too much. We all know, you are privileged to be grave, but as our periodical is not a receptacle for sermons, neither your age nor your apostolic sirname will make one of yours admissible." 66 Sir," I responded to this querulous interruption, "it is above twenty centuries since sages taught, and it will probably be about twenty years ere you will have learned to judge of nothing by its name. But, Sir, were you right in anticipating from my subject the very essence of gravity, I can assure you that there is nothing you stand more in need of. Your book is thought altogether too frothy for a collegiate production. And even were it deemed excusable in youth, such as I see around

me, to be airy and gamesome; of me, you must be aware, Sir, that it is expected to come forth laden with meaning and edification." Here brother Frank muttered something about the difference between laden and leaden. "Therefore, Sir," I concluded, "I will proceed, notwithstanding Mr. Airy's innuendo, to the reading of what you are pleased to entitle my sermon. I commenced, amid countenances expressive of fearful misgivings; but no sooner had I closed, than it was pronounced that the end of my republic had forgot the beginning, and Charity' was admitted, nem. con.

[ocr errors]

6

THE enormous evils which conquerers and usurpers have inflicted upon the world, are apt to blind our eyes to the excuses of which their conduct is susceptible, and to make us forget that a criminal's guilt is not always in exact proportion to the mischief of his crime.

This tendency is strengthened by a peculiar spirit, which has sprung up of late, in literature and in morals,—a spirit of paradox and Quixotism in literature, and a something in morals akin to fanaticism in religion. The class of men I have mentioned afford a fine mark for this spirit to exhaust itself upon. They are ancient objects of admiration,—and an assailant of the idols may make himself brilliant with the shivered particles which are showered upon him at each blow. Their crimes are all of so glaring a kind, and produce such a deal of evil, simply because of the grand scale on which they act, that it is easy for a sentimental moralist to work himself and his readers into an enthusiasm of abhorrence, over their misdoings, especially if he incline, like most popular writers, to judge of an action rather from its particular and often incidental results, than from its true nature.

It is no wonder, then, if "these pagod things, of sabre sway," who lie so invitingly open to attack, and are withal so offensive to the temper of our times, have found of late very little mercy. They are just now in especially bad repute, since the most eloquent moralist of the age has taken the lead of the assailants. In the noise of the onset, can the following palliatory words find hearing?

I. The successful soldier is seldom a man of cultivated and liberalized mind. Commonly, he has passed most of his life

« ForrigeFortsett »