THE BEE-TREE
[From “Western Clearings” 1846, a collection composed both of contributions to magazines and annuals and of new matter. The reprint below omits an explanatory introduction and an episodic love-story which, besides being feeble, is rendered quite superfluous by the dénouement.]
It was on one of the lovely mornings of our ever lovely autumn, so early that the sun had scarcely touched the tops of the still verdant forest, that Silas Ashburn and his eldest son sallied forth for a day’s chopping on the newly-purchased land of a rich settler, who had been but a few months among us. The tall form of the father, lean and gaunt as the very image of Famine, derived little grace from the rags which streamed from the elbows of his almost sleeveless coat, or flapped round the tops of his heavy boots, as he strode across the long causeway that formed the communication from his house to the dry land. Poor Joe’s costume showed, if possible, a still greater need of the aid of that useful implement, the needle. His mother is one who thinks little of the ancient proverb that commends the stitch in time; and the clothing under her care sometimes falls in pieces, seam by seam. For want of this occasional aid is rendered more especially necessary by the slightness of the original sewing; so that the brisk breeze of the morning gave the poor boy no faint resemblance to a tall young aspen,
“With all its leaves fast fluttering, all at once.”
The little conversation which passed between the father and son was such as necessarily makes up much of the talk of the poor.
“If we hadn’t had sich bad luck this summer,” said Mr. Ashburn, “losing that heifer, and the pony, and them three hogs,—all in that plaguy spring-hole, too,—I thought to have bought that timbered forty of Dean. It would have squared out my farm jist about right.”
“The pony didn’t die in the spring-hole, father,” said Joe.
“No, he did not, but he got his death there, for all. He never stopped shiverin’ from the time he fell in. You thought he had the agur, but I know’d well enough what ailded him; but I wasn’t agoin’ to let Dean know, because he’d ha’ thought himself so blam’d cunning, after all he’d said to me about that spring-hole. If the agur could kill, Joe, we’d all ha’ been dead long ago.”
Joe sighed,—a sigh of assent. They walked on musingly.
“This is going to be a good job of Keene’s,” continued Mr. Ashburn, turning to a brighter theme, as they crossed the road and struck into the “timbered land,” on their way to the scene of the day’s operations. “He has bought three eighties, all lying close together, and he’ll want as much as one forty cleared right off; and I’ve a good notion to take the fencin’ of it as well as the choppin’. He’s got plenty of money, and they say he don’t shave quite so close as some. But I tell you, Joe, if I do take the job, you must turn to like a catamount, for I ain’t a-going to make a nigger o’ myself, and let my children do nothing but eat.”
“Well, father,” responded Joe, whose pale face gave token of any thing but high living, “I’ll do what I can; but you know I never work two days at choppin’ but what I have the agur like sixty,—and a feller can’t work when he’s got the agur.”
“Not while the fit’s on, to be sure,” said the father, “but I’ve worked many an afternoon after my fit was over, when my head felt as big as a half-bushel, and my hands would ha’ sizzed if I had put ’em in water. Poor folks has got to work—but Joe! if there isn’t bees, by golley! I wonder if anybody’s been a baitin’ for ’em? Stop! hush! watch which way they go!”
And with breathless interest—forgetful of all troubles, past, present, and future—they paused to observe the capricious wheelings and flittings of the little cluster, as they tried every flower on which the sun shone, or returned again and again to such as suited best their discriminating taste. At length, after a weary while, one suddenly rose into the air with a loud whizz, and after balancing a moment on a level with the tree-tops, darted off, like a well-sent arrow, toward the east, followed instantly by the whole busy company, till not a loiterer remained.
“Well! if this isn’t luck!” exclaimed Ashburn, exultingly; “they make right for Keene’s land! We’ll have ’em! go ahead, Joe, and keep your eye on ’em!”
Joe obeyed so well in both points that he not only outran his father, but very soon turned a summerset over a gnarled root or grub which lay in his path. This faux pas nearly demolished one side of his face, and what remained of his jacket sleeve, while his father, not quite so heedless, escaped falling, but tore his boot almost off with what he called “a contwisted stub of the toe.”
But these were trifling inconveniences, and only taught them to use a little more caution in their eagerness. They followed on, unweariedly; crossed several fences, and threaded much of Mr. Keene’s tract of forest-land, scanning with practised eye every decayed tree, whether standing or prostrate, until at length, in the side of a gigantic but leafless oak, they espied, some forty feet from the ground, the “sweet home” of the immense swarm whose scouts had betrayed their hiding-place.
“The Indians have been here;” said Ashburn; “you see they’ve felled this saplin’ agin the bee-tree, so as they could climb up to the hole; but the red devils have been disturbed afore they had time to dig it out. If they’d had axes to cut down the big tree, they wouldn’t have left a smitchin o’ honey, they’re such tarnal thieves!”
Mr. Ashburn’s ideas of morality were much shocked at the thought of the dishonesty of the Indians, who, as is well known, have no rights of any kind; but considering himself as first finder, the lawful proprietor of this much-coveted treasure, gained too without the trouble of a protracted search, or the usual amount of baiting, and burning of honeycombs, he lost no time in taking possession after the established mode.
To cut his initials with his axe on the trunk of the bee-tree, and to make blazes on several of the trees he had passed, detained him but a few minutes; and with many a cautious noting of the surrounding localities, and many a charge to Joe “not to say nothing to nobody,” Silas turned his steps homeward, musing on the important fact that he had had good luck for once, and planning important business quite foreign to the day’s chopping.
Now it so happened that Mr. Keene, who is a restless old gentleman, and, moreover, quite green in the dignity of a land-holder, thought proper to turn his horse’s head, for this particular morning ride, directly towards these same “three eighties,” on which he had engaged Ashburn and his son to commence the important work of clearing. Mr. Keene is low of stature, rather globular in contour, and exceedingly parrot-nosed; wearing, moreover, a face red enough to lead one to suppose he had made his money as a dealer in claret; but, in truth, one of the kindest of men, in spite of a little quickness of temper. He is profoundly versed in the art and mystery of store-keeping, and as profoundly ignorant of all that must sooner or later be learned by every resident land-owner of the western country.
Thus much being premised, we shall hardly wonder that our good old friend felt exceedingly aggrieved at meeting Silas Ashburn and the “lang-legged chiel” Joe, (who has grown longer with every shake of ague,) on the way from his tract, instead of to it.
“What in the world’s the matter now!” began Mr. Keene, rather testily. “Are you never going to begin that work?”
“I don’t know but I shall;” was the cool reply of Ashburn; “I can’t begin it to-day, though.”
“And why not, pray, when I’ve been so long waiting?”
“Because, I’ve got something else that must be done first. You don’t think your work is all the work there is in the world, do you?”
Mr. Keene was almost too angry to reply, but he made an effort to say, “When am I to expect you, then?”
“Why, I guess we’ll come on in a day or two, and then I’ll bring both the boys.”
So saying, and not dreaming of having been guilty of an incivility, Mr. Ashburn passed on, intent only on his bee-tree.
Mr. Keene could not help looking after the ragged pair for a moment, and he muttered angrily as he turned away, “Aye! pride and beggary go together in this confounded new country! You feel very independent, no doubt, but I’ll try if I can’t find somebody that wants money.”
And Mr. Keene’s pony, as if sympathizing with his master’s vexation, started off at a sharp, passionate trot, which he has learned, no doubt, under the habitual influence of the spicy temper of his rider.
To find labourers who wanted money, or who would own that they wanted it, was at that time no easy task. Our poorer neighbours have been so little accustomed to value household comforts, that the opportunity to obtain them presents but feeble incitement to continuous industry. However, it happened in this case that Mr. Keene’s star was in the ascendant, and the woods resounded, ere long, under the sturdy strokes of several choppers.
* * * * *
The Ashburns, in the mean time, set themselves busily at work to make due preparations for the expedition which they had planned for the following night. They felt, as does every one who finds a bee-tree in this region, that the prize was their own—that nobody else had the slightest claim to its rich stores; yet the gathering in of the spoils was to be performed, according to the invariable custom where the country is much settled, in the silence of night, and with every precaution of secrecy. This seems inconsistent, yet such is the fact.
The remainder of the “lucky” day and the whole of the succeeding one passed in scooping troughs for the reception of the honey,—tedious work at best, but unusually so in this instance, because several of the family were prostrate with the ague. Ashburn’s anxiety lest some of his customary bad luck should intervene between discovery and possession, made him more impatient and harsh than usual; and the interior of that comfortless cabin would have presented to a chance visitor, who knew not of the golden hopes which cheered its inmates, an aspect of unmitigated wretchedness. Mrs. Ashburn sat almost in the fire, with a tattered hood on her head and the relics of a bed-quilt wrapped about her person; while the emaciated limbs of the baby on her lap,—two years old, yet unweaned,—seemed almost to reach the floor, so preternaturally were they lengthened by the stretches of a four months’ ague. Two of the boys lay in the trundle-bed, which was drawn as near to the fire as possible; and every spare article of clothing that the house afforded was thrown over them, in the vain attempt to warm their shivering frames. “Stop your whimperin’, can’t ye!” said Ashburn, as he hewed away with hatchet and jack-knife, “you’ll be hot enough before long.” And when the fever came his words were more than verified.
Two nights had passed before the preparations were completed. Ashburn and such of his boys as could work had laboured indefatigably at the troughs; and Mrs. Ashburn had thrown away the milk, and the few other stores which cumbered her small supply of household utensils, to free as many as possible for the grand occasion. This third day had been “well day” to most of the invalids, and after the moon had risen to light them through the dense wood, the family set off, in high spirits, on their long, dewy walk. They had passed the causeway and were turning from the highway into the skirts of the forest, when they were accosted by a stranger, a young man in a hunter’s dress, evidently a traveller, and one who knew nothing of the place or its inhabitants, as Mr. Ashburn ascertained, to his entire satisfaction, by the usual number of queries. The stranger, a handsome youth of one or two and twenty, had that frank, joyous air which takes so well with us Wolverines; and after he had fully satisfied our bee-hunter’s curiosity, he seemed disposed to ask some questions in his turn. One of the first of these related to the moving cause of the procession and their voluminous display of containers.
“Why, we’re goin’ straight to a bee-tree that I lit upon two or three days ago, and if you’ve a mind to, you may go ’long, and welcome. It’s a real peeler, I tell ye! There’s a hundred and fifty weight of honey in it, if there’s a pound.”
The young traveller waited no second invitation. His light knapsack being but small incumbrance, he took upon himself the weight of several troughs that seemed too heavy for the weaker members of the expedition. They walked on at a rapid and steady pace for a good half hour, over paths that were none of the smoothest, and only here and there lighted by the moonbeams. The mother and children were but ill fitted for the exertion, but Aladdin, on his midnight way to the wondrous vault of treasure, would as soon have thought of complaining of fatigue.
Who then shall describe the astonishment, the almost breathless rage of Silas Ashburn,—the bitter disappointment of the rest,—when they found, instead of the bee-tree, a great gap in the dense forest, and the bright moon shining on the shattered fragments of the immense oak that had contained their prize? The poor children, fainting with toil now that the stimulus was gone, threw themselves on the ground; and Mrs. Ashburn, seating her wasted form on a huge branch, burst into tears.
“It’s all one!” exclaimed Ashburn, when at length he could find words; “it’s all alike! this is just my luck! It ain’t none of my neighbour’s work, though! They know better than to be so mean! It’s the rich! Them that begrudges the poor man the breath of life!” And he cursed bitterly and with clenched teeth, whoever had robbed him of his right.
“Don’t cry, Betsey,” he continued; “let’s go home. I’ll find out who has done this, and I’ll let ’em know there’s law for the poor man as well as the rich. Come along, young ’uns, and stop your blubberin’, and let them splinters alone!” The poor little things were trying to gather up some of the fragments to which the honey still adhered, but their father was too angry to be kind.
“Was the tree on your own land?” now inquired the young stranger, who had stood by in sympathizing silence during this scene.
“No! but that don’t make any difference. The man that found it first, and marked it, had a right to it afore the President of the United States, and that I’ll let ’em know, if it costs me my farm. It’s on old Keene’s land, and I shouldn’t wonder if the old miser had done it himself,—but I’ll let him know what’s the law in Michigan!”
“Mr. Keene a miser!” exclaimed the young stranger, rather hastily.
“Why, what do you know about him?”
“O! nothing!—that is, nothing very particular—but I have heard him well spoken of. What I was going to say was, that I fear you will not find the law able to do anything for you. If the tree was on another person’s property—”
“Property! that’s just so much as you know about it!” replied Ashburn, angrily. “I tell ye I know the law well enough, and I know the honey was mine—and old Keene shall know it too, if he’s the man that stole it.”
The stranger politely forbore further reply, and the whole party walked on in sad silence till they reached the village road, when the young stranger left them with a kindly “good night!”
* * * * *
It was soon after an early breakfast on the morning which succeeded poor Ashburn’s disappointment, that Mr. Keene, attended by his lovely orphan niece, Clarissa Bensley, was engaged in his little court-yard, tending with paternal care the brilliant array of autumnal flowers which graced its narrow limits. Beds in size and shape nearly resembling patty-pans, were filled to overflowing with dahlias, china-asters and marigolds, while the walks which surrounded them, daily “swept with a woman’s neatness,” set off to the best advantage these resplendent children of Flora. A vine-hung porch that opened upon the miniature Paradise was lined with bird-cages of all sizes, and on a yard-square grass-plot stood the tin cage of a squirrel, almost too fat to be lively.
After all was “perform’d to point,”—when no dahlia remained unsupported,—no cluster of many-hued asters without its neat hoop,—when no intrusive weed could be discerned, even through Mr. Keene’s spectacles,—Clarissa took the opportunity to ask if she might take the pony for a ride.
“To see those poor Ashburns, uncle.”
“They’re a lazy, impudent set, Clary.”
“But they are all sick, uncle; almost every one of the family down with ague. Do let me go and carry them something. I hear they are completely destitute of comforts.”
“And so they ought to be, my dear,” said Mr. Keene, who could not forget what he considered Ashburn’s impertinence.
But his habitual kindness prevailed, and he concluded his remonstrance by saddling the pony himself, arranging Clarissa’s riding-dress with all the assiduity of a gallant cavalier, and giving into her hand, with her neat silver-mounted whip, a little basket, well-crammed by his wife’s kind care with delicacies for the invalids. No wonder that he looked after her with pride as she rode off! There are few prettier girls than the bright-eyed Clarissa.
* * * * *
“How are you this morning, Mrs. Ashburn?” asked the young visitant as she entered the wretched den, her little basket on her arm, her sweet face all flushed, and her eyes more than half suffused with tears.
“Law sakes alive!” was the reply. “I ain’t no how. I’m clear tuckered out with these young ’uns. They’ve had the agur already this morning, and they’re as cross as bear-cubs.”
“Ma!” screamed one, as if in confirmation of the maternal remark, “I want some tea!”
“Tea! I ha’n’t got no tea, and you know that well enough!”
“Well, give me a piece o’ sweetcake then, and a pickle.”
“The sweetcake was gone long ago, and I ha’n’t nothing to make more—so shut your head!” And as Clarissa whispered to the poor pallid child that she would bring him some if he would be a good boy, and not tease his mother, Mrs. Ashburn produced, from a barrel of similar delicacies, a yellow cucumber, something less than a foot long, “pickled” in whiskey and water—and this the child began devouring eagerly.
Miss Bensley now set out upon the table the varied contents of her basket. “This honey,” she said, showing some as limpid as water, “was found a day or two ago in uncle’s woods—wild honey—isn’t it beautiful?”
Mrs. Ashburn fixed her eyes on it without speaking; but her husband, who just then came in, did not command himself so far. “Where did you say you got that honey?” he asked.
“In our woods,” repeated Clarissa; “I never saw such quantities; and a good deal of it as clear and beautiful as this.”
“I thought as much!” said Ashburn angrily: “and now, Clary Bensley,” he added, “you’ll just take that cursed honey back to your uncle, and tell him to keep it, and eat it, and I hope it will choke him! and if I live, I’ll make him rue the day he ever touched it.”
Miss Bensley gazed on him, lost in astonishment. She could think of nothing but that he must have gone suddenly mad; and the idea made her instinctively hasten her steps toward the pony.
“Well! if you won’t take it, I’ll send it after ye!” cried Ashburn, who had lashed himself into a rage; and he hurled the little jar, with all the force of his powerful arm, far down the path by which Clarissa was about to depart, while his poor wife tried to restrain him with a piteous “Oh, father! don’t! don’t!”
Then, recollecting himself a little,—for he is far from being habitually brutal,—he made an awkward apology to the frightened girl.
“I ha’n’t nothing agin you, Miss Bensley; you’ve always been kind to me and mine; but that old devil of an uncle of yours, that can’t bear to let a poor man live,—I’ll larn him who he’s got to deal with! Tell him to look out, for he’ll have reason!”
He held the pony while Clarissa mounted, as if to atone for his rudeness to herself; but he ceased not to repeat his denunciations against Mr. Keene as long as she was within hearing. As she paced over the logs, Ashburn, his rage much cooled by this ebullition, stood looking after her.
“I swan!” he exclaimed; “if there ain’t that very feller that went with us to the bee-tree, leading Clary Bensley’s horse over the cross-way!”
* * * * *
Clarissa felt obliged to repeat to her uncle the rude threats which had so much terrified her; and it needed but this to confirm Mr. Keene’s suspicious dislike of Ashburn, whom he had already learned to regard as one of the worst specimens of western character that had yet crossed his path. He had often felt the vexations of his new position to be almost intolerable, and was disposed to imagine himself the predestined victim of all the ill-will and all the impositions of the neighbourhood. It unfortunately happened, about this particular time, that he had been more than usually visited with disasters which are too common in a new country to be much regarded by those who know what they mean. His fences had been thrown down, his corn-field robbed, and even the lodging-place of the peacock forcibly attempted. But from the moment he discovered that Ashburn had a grudge against him, he thought neither of unruly oxen, mischievous boys, nor exasperated neighbours; but concluded that the one unlucky house in the swamp was the ever-welling foundation of all this bitterness. He had not yet been long enough among us to discern how much our “bark is waur than our bite.”
It was on a very raw and gusty evening, not long after, that Mr. Keene, with his handkerchief carefully wrapped around his chin, sallied forth after dark, on an expedition to the post-office. He was thinking how vexatious it was—how like everything else in this disorganized, or rather unorganized new country, that the weekly mail should not be obliged to arrive at regular hours, and those early enough to allow of one’s getting one’s letters before dark. As he proceeded he became aware of the approach of two persons, and though it was too dark to distinguish faces, he heard distinctly the dreaded tones of Silas Ashburn.
“No! I found you were right enough there! I couldn’t get at him that way; but I’ll pay him for it yet!”
He lost the reply of the other party in this iniquitous scheme, in the rushing of the wild wind which hurried him on his course; but he had heard enough! He made out to reach the office, and receiving his paper, and hastening desperately homeward, had scarcely spirits even to read the price-current, (though he did mechanically glance at the corner of the “Trumpet of Commerce,”) before he retired to bed in meditative sadness; feeling quite unable to await the striking of nine on the kitchen clock, which, in all ordinary circumstances, “toll’d the hour for retiring.”
Mr. Keene’s nerves had received a terrible shock on this fated evening, and it is certain that for a man of sober imagination, his dreams were terrific. He saw Ashburn, covered from crown to sole with a buzzing shroud of bees, trampling on his flower-beds, tearing up his honey-suckles root and branch, and letting his canaries and Java sparrows out of their cages; and, as his eyes recoiled from this horrible scene, they encountered the shambling form of Joe, who, besides aiding and abetting in these enormities, was making awful strides, axe in hand, toward the sanctuary of the pea-fowls.
He awoke with a cry of horror, and found his bed-room full of smoke. Starting up in agonized alarm, he awoke Mrs. Keene, and half-dressed, by the red light which glimmered around them, they rushed together to Clarissa’s chamber. It was empty. To find the stairs was the next thought; but at the very top they met the dreaded bee-finder armed with a prodigious club!
“Oh mercy! don’t murder us!” shrieked Mrs. Keene, falling on her knees; while her husband, whose capsicum was completely roused, began pummelling Ashburn as high as he could reach, bestowing on him at the same time, in no very choice terms, his candid opinion as to the propriety of setting people’s houses on fire, by way of revenge.
“Why, you’re both as crazy as loons!” was Mr. Ashburn’s polite exclamation, as he held off Mr. Keene at arm’s length. “I was comin’ up o’ purpose to tell you that you needn’t be frightened. It’s only the ruff o’ the shanty, there,—the kitchen, as you call it.”
“And what have you done with Clarissa?”—“Ay! where’s my niece?” cried the distracted pair.
“Where is she? why, down stairs to be sure, takin’ care o’ the traps they throw’d out o’ the shanty. I was out a ’coon-hunting, and see the light, but I was so far off that they’d got it pretty well down before I got here. That ’ere young spark of Clary’s worked like a beaver, I tell ye!”
“You need not attempt,” solemnly began Mr. Keene, “you need not think to make me believe, that you are not the man that set my house on fire. I know your revengeful temper; I have heard of your threats, and you shall answer for all, sir! before you’re a day older!”
Ashburn seemed struck dumb, between his involuntary respect for Mr. Keene’s age and character, and the contemptuous anger with which his accusations filled him. “Well! I swan!” said he after a pause; “but here comes Clary; she’s got common sense; ask her how the fire happened.”
“It’s all over now, uncle,” she exclaimed, almost breathless, “it has not done so very much damage.”
“Damage!” said Mrs. Keene, dolefully; “we shall never get things clean again while the world stands!”
“And where are my birds?” inquired the old gentleman.
“All safe—quite safe; we moved them into the parlour.”
“We! who, pray?”
“Oh! the neighbours came, you know, uncle; and—Mr. Ashburn—”
“Give the devil his due,” interposed Ashburn; “you know very well that the whole concern would have gone if it hadn’t been for that young feller.”
“What young fellow? where?”
“Why here,” said Silas, pulling forward our young stranger; “this here chap.”
“Young man,” began Mr. Keene,—but at the moment, up came somebody with a light, and while Clarissa retreated behind Mr. Ashburn, the stranger was recognised by her aunt and uncle as Charles Darwin.
“Charles! what on earth brought you here?”
“Ask Clary,” said Ashburn, with grim jocoseness.
Mr. Keene turned mechanically to obey; but Clarissa had disappeared.
“Well! I guess I can tell you something about it, if nobody else won’t,” said Ashburn; “I’m something of a Yankee, and it’s my notion that there was some sparkin’ a goin’ on in your kitchin, and that somehow or other the young folks managed to set it a-fire.”
The old folks looked more puzzled than ever. “Do speak, Charles,” said Mr. Keene; “what does it all mean? Did you set my house on fire?”
“I’m afraid I must have had some hand in it, sir,” said Charles, whose self-possession seemed quite to have deserted him.
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Keene; “and I’ve been laying it to this man!”
“Yes! you know’d I owed you a spite, on account o’ that plaguy bee-tree,” said Ashburn; “a guilty conscience needs no accuser. But you was much mistaken if you thought I was sich a bloody-minded villain as to burn your gimcrackery for that! If I could have paid you for it, fair and even, I’d ha’ done it with all my heart and soul. But I don’t set men’s houses a-fire when I get mad at ’em.”
“But you threatened vengeance,” said Mr. Keene.
“So I did, but that was when I expected to get it by law, though; and this here young man knows that, if he’d only speak.”
Thus adjured, Charles did speak, and so much to the purpose that it did not take many minutes to convince Mr. Keene that Ashburn’s evil-mindedness was bounded by the limits of the law, that precious privilege of the Wolverine. But there was still the mystery of Charles’s apparition, and in order to its full unravelment, the blushing Clarissa had to be enticed from her hiding-place, and brought to confession. And then it was made clear that she, with all her innocent looks, was the moving cause of the mighty mischief. She it was who encouraged Charles to believe that her uncle’s anger would not last forever; and this had led Charles to venture into the neighbourhood; and it was while consulting together, (on this particular point, of course,) that they managed to set the kitchen curtain on fire.
These things occupied some time in explaining,—but they were at length, by the aid of words and more eloquent blushes, made so clear, that Mr. Keene concluded, not only to new roof the kitchen, but to add a very pretty wing to one side of the house. And at the present time, the steps of Charles Darwin, when he returns from a surveying tour, seek the little gate as naturally as if he had never lived anywhere else. And the sweet face of Clarissa is always there, ready to welcome him, though she still finds plenty of time to keep in order the complicated affairs of both uncle and aunt.
Mr. Keene has done his very best to atone for his injurious estimate of Wolverine honour, by giving constant employment to Ashburn and his sons, and owning himself always the obliged party, without which concession all he could do would avail nothing. And Mrs. Keene and Clarissa have been unwearied in their kind attentions to the family, supplying them with so many comforts that most of them have got rid of the ague, in spite of themselves. The house has assumed so cheerful an appearance that I could scarcely recognise it for the same squalid den it had often made my heart ache to look upon. As I was returning from my last visit there, I encountered Mr. Ashburn, and remarked to him how very comfortable they seemed.
“Yes,” he replied; “I’ve had pretty good luck lately; but I’m a goin’ to pull up stakes and move to Wisconsin. I think I can do better, further West.”
FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN
1828–1862
The facts of O’Brien’s life have never been set in order. Even the date of his birth in County Limerick is uncertain. His untimely death was at Cumberland, Virginia, from wounds in the Federal service early in the Civil War. The clearest impression of the man may be had from William Winter’s introduction to a collection of his verse and prose, published in Boston, 1881. He seems very like the Thackeray Irishman—generous, impulsive, extravagant with money and words. In the geniality that deserved their warm affection his somewhat Bohemian companions found a touch of genius; but the demands of a spendthrift life hand-to-mouth, and the facility with which these demands could be met, both made against the realisation of this higher promise. That it remained only a promise may be ascribed also to his dying at thirty-four. Youth is evident especially in that his prose is imitative. Poe is suggested almost immediately; and there is often an undertone of Dickens, the Dickens of the Christmas stories. In other aspects, too, O’Brien’s writing is the work, not of a craftsman, but of a brilliant amateur. The fancies that he threw upon the periodical press are never quite achieved. Considered as materials, these fancies vary in value all the way from the conceptions of The Diamond Lens and The Wondersmith, which are not far from pure imagination, to Tommatoo and My Wife’s Tempter, which are mere melodrama. But whatever their potential value, O’Brien’s hand was not steady enough to bring it out. The main scene of The Diamond Lens, the microscopic vision, is as delicate as it is original, and as vivid as it is delicate; but the preparation for it is fumbling, and the solution unsatisfying. The tale printed below is exceptionally compact in structure and careful in detail. The obvious general resemblance to Poe’s tales of physical horror should not obscure certain original merits. The note of realism, for instance, is not merely Poe’s verisimilitude; it expresses a differentiation of character more like that of Kipling’s similar study, The End of the Passage. Prof. Brander Matthews (Philosophy of the Short-Story, page 68) points out the similarity in conception of Maupassant’s Le Horla.
Writing much prose and verse for many magazines now long passed away, and a play or two for Wallack, O’Brien found his steadiest employment with the Harpers between 1853 and 1858, and his most congenial life with the younger journalists and artists of New York.