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Page 2
_De te fabula_ does not apply here, my dear friend; for you will show
me more indulgence than I have skill to demand. And should you find
matter of interest in this book, yours, rather than the author's, will
be the merit. As the beauty of nature is from the eye that looks upon
her, so would the story be dull and barren, save for the life and
color of the reader's sympathy.
Yours most sincerely,
JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
IDOLATRY
I.
THE ENCHANTED RING.
One of the most imposing buildings in Boston twenty years ago was a
granite hotel, whose western windows looked upon a graveyard. Passing
up a flight of steps, and beneath a portico of dignified granite
columns, and so through an embarrassing pair of swinging-doors to the
roomy vestibule,--you would there pause a moment to spit upon the
black-and-white tessellated pavement. Having thus asserted your title
to Puritan ancestry, and to the best accommodations the house
afforded, you would approach the desk and write your name in the hotel
register. This done, you would be apt to run your eye over the last
dozen arrivals, on the chance of lighting upon the autograph of some
acquaintance, to be shunned or sought according to circumstances.
Let us suppose, for the story's sake, that such was the gentle
reader's behavior on a certain night during the latter part of May,
in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-three. If now he will turn to
the ninety-ninth page of the register above mentioned, he will remark
that the last name thereon written is, "Doctor Hiero Glyphic. Room
27." The natural inference is that, unless so odd a name be an assumed
one, Doctor Glyphic occupies that room. Passing on to page one
hundred, he will find the first entry reads as follows "Balder
Helwyse, Cosmopolis. Room 29."
In no trifling mood do we call attention to these two names, and,
above all, to their relative position in the book. Had they both
appeared upon the same page, this romance might never have been
written. On such seemingly frail pegs hang consequences the most
weighty. Because Doctor Glyphic preferred the humble foot of the
ninety-ninth page to the trouble of turning to a leading position on
the one hundredth; because Mr. Helwyse, having begun the one hundredth
page, was too incurious to find out who was his next-door neighbor on
the ninety-ninth, ensued unparalleled adventures, and this account of
them.
Our present purpose, by the reader's leave, and in his company, is to
violate Doctor Hiero Glyphic's retirement, as he lies asleep in bed.
Nor shall we stop at his bedside; we mean to penetrate deep into the
darksome caves of his memory, and to drag forth thence sundry
odd-looking secrets, which shall blink and look strangely in the
light of discovery;--little thought their keeper that our eyes should
ever behold them! Yet will he not resent our, intrusion; it is twenty
years ago,--and he lies asleep.
Two o'clock sounds from the neighboring steeple of the Old South
Church, as we noiselessly enter the chamber,--noiselessly, for the
hush of the past is about us. We scarcely distinguish anything at
first; the moon has set on the other side of the hotel, and perhaps,
too, some of the dimness of those twenty intervening years affects our
eyesight. By degrees, however, objects begin to define themselves; the
bed shows doubtfully white, and that dark blot upon the pillow must be
the face of our sleeping man. It is turned towards the window; the
mouth is open; probably the good Doctor is snoring, albeit, across
this distance of time, the sound fails to reach us.
The room is as bare, square, and characterless as other hotel rooms;
nevertheless, its occupant may have left a hint or two of himself
about, which would be of use to us. There are no trunks or other
luggage; evidently he will be on his way again to-morrow. The window
is shut, although the night is warm and clear. The door is carefully
locked. The Doctor's garments, which appear to be of rather a jaunty
and knowing cut, are lying disorderly about, on chair, table, or
floor. He carries no watch; but under his pillow we see protruding
the corner of a great leathern pocket-book, which might contain a
fortune in bank-notes.
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