{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9208/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9208","id":"gutenberg_9208","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9208","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Short Stories","Children's Literature","Historical fiction, American","New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","Short stories"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                        TWICE TOLD TALES\n\n                        FANCY'S SHOW-BOX\n\n                           A MORALITY\n\n                      By Nathaniel Hawthorne\n\n\n\nWhat is Guilt?  A stain upon the soul.  And it is a point of vast\ninterest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth\nand flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon,\nbut which, physically, have never had existence.  Must the fleshly hand\nand visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in\norder to give them their entire validity against the sinner?  Or, while\nnone but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal,\nwill guilty thoughts,--of which guilty deeds are no more than\nshadows,--will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence,\nin the supreme court of eternity?  In the solitude of a midnight chamber,\nor in a desert, afar from men, or in a church, while the body is kneeling,\nthe soul may pollute itself even with those crimes, which we are\naccustomed to deem altogether carnal.  If this be true, it is a fearful\ntruth.\n\nLet us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example.  A venerable\ngentleman, one Mr. Smith, who had long been regarded as a pattern of\nmoral excellence, was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of\ngenerous wine.  His children being gone forth about their worldly\nbusiness, and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone, in a deep,\nluxurious arm-chair, with his feet beneath a richly carved mahogany\ntable.  Some old people have a dread of solitude, and when better company\nmay not be had, rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe,\nasleep upon the carpet.  But Mr. Smith, whose silver hair was the bright\nsymbol of a life unstained, except by such spots as are inseparable from\nhuman nature, he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor\nof a grown person to stand between him and his own soul.  Nevertheless,\neither Manhood must converse with Age, or Womanhood must soothe him with\ngentle cares, or Infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts\nwill stray into the misty region of the past, and the old man be chill\nand sad.  Wine will not always cheer him.  Such might have been the case\nwith Mr. Smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old\nMadeira, he beheld three figures entering the room.  These were Fancy,\nwho had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box\nof pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a\npen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole, and a huge manuscript\nvolume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person\nshrouded in a dusky mantle, which concealed both face and form.  But Mr.\nSmith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience.\n\nHow kind of Fancy, Memory, and Conscience to visit the old gentleman,\njust as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a\nsparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were\nless aged!  Through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson\ncurtains muffled the glare of sunshine, and created a rich obscurity, the\nthree guests drew near the silver-haired old mail.  Memory, with a finger\nbetween the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand.\nConscience, with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her\nstation on the left, so as to be next his heart; while Fancy set down her\npicture-box upon the table, with the magnifying-glass convenient to his\neye.  We can sketch merely the outlines of two or three out of the many\npictures which, at the pulling of a string, successively peopled the box\nwith the semblances of living scenes.\n\nOne was a moonlight picture; in the background, a lowly dwelling; and in\nfront, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of\nradiance, two youthful figures, male and female.  The young man stood\nwith folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a gleam of triumph in\nhis eye, as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl.  She was almost\nprostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and\nanguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in\nsupplication.  Her eyes she could not lift.  But neither her agony, nor\nthe lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of\nthe form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young\nman.  He was the personification of triumphant scorn.  Now, strange to\nsay, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the\nobjects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to\nrecognize the farm-house, the tree, and both the figures of the picture.\nThe young man, in times long past, had often met his gaze within the\nlooking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love,--his\ncottage love,--his Martha Burroughs!  Mr. Smith was scandalized.  \"O,\nvile and slanderous picture!\" he exclaims.  \"When have I triumphed over\nruined innocence?  Was not Martha wedded, in her teens, to David Tomkius,\nwho won her girlish love, and long enjoyed her affection as a wife?  And\never since his death, she has lived a reputable widow!\"  Meantime, Memory\nwas turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with\nuncertain fingers, until, among the earlier pages, she found one which\nhad reference to this picture.  She reads it, close to the old\ngentleman's ear; it is a record merely of sinful thought, which never was\nembodied in an act; but, while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her\nface, and strikes a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith.  Though not a\ndeath-blow, the torture was extreme.\n\nThe exhibition proceeded.  One after another, Fancy displayed her\npictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious\nartist, on purpose to vex Mr. Smith.  Not a shadow of proof could have\nbeen adduced, in any earthly court, that he was guilty of the slightest\nof those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face.  In one\nscene, there was a table set out, with several bottles, and glasses half\nfilled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp.\nThere had been mirth and revelry, until the hand of the clock stood just\nat midnight, when murder stepped between the boon companions.  A young\nman had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead, with a ghastly wound\ncrushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium of mingled rage\nand horror in his countenance, stood the youthful likeness of Mr. Smith.\nThe murdered youth wore the features of Edward Spencer!  \"What does this\nrascal of a painter mean?\" cries Mr. Smith, provoked beyond all patience.\n\"Edward Spencer was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as I to\nhim, through more than half a century.  Neither I, nor any other, ever\nmurdered him.  Was he not alive within five years, and did he not, in\ntoken of our long friendship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane and a\nmourning ring?\"  Again had Memory been turning over her volume, and\nfixed at length upon so confused a page, that she surely must have\nscribbled it when she was tipsy.  The purport was, however, that, while\nMr. Smith and Edward Spencer were heating their young blood with wine, a\nquarrel had flashed up between them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath, had\nflung a bottle at Spencer's head.  True, it missed its aim, and merely\nsmashed a looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was\nimperfectly remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh.  Yet,\nagain, while Memory was reading, Conscience unveiled her face, struck a\ndagger to the heart of Mr. Smith, and quelled his remonstrance with her\niron frown.  The pain was quite excruciating.\n\nSome of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in\ncolors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured.\nA dull, semitransparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the\ncanvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish, while the eye sought\nmost earnestly to fix them.  But, in every scene, however dubiously\nportrayed, Mr. Smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments, at\nvarious ages, as in a dusty mirror.  After poring several minutes over\none of these blurred and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to\nsee that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of\nlife, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved\nchildren.  \"Really, this puzzles me!\" quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony of\nconscious rectitude.  \"Asking pardon of the painter, I pronounce him a\nfool, as well as a scandalous knave.  A man of my standing in the world,\nto be robbing little children of their clothes!  Ridiculous!\"  But while\nhe spoke, Memory had searched her fatal volume, and found a page, which,\nwith her sad, calm voice, she poured into his ear.  It was not altogether\ninapplicable to the misty scene.  It told how Mr. Smith had been\ngrievously tempted, by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a\nlegal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan children, joint\nheirs to a considerable estate.  Fortunately, before he was quite\ndecided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice.\nAs Memory ceased to read, Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and\nwould have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger, only that he\nstruggled, and clasped his hands before his heart.  Even then, however,\nhe sustained an ugly gash.\n\nWhy should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful\npictures?  Painted by an artist of wondrous power, and terrible\nacquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the\nnever perpetrated sins that had glided through the lifetime of Mr. Smith.\nAnd could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness,\ngive valid evidence against him, at the day of judgment?  Be that the\ncase or not, there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear\nwould have washed away each hateful picture, and left the canvas white as\nsnow.  But Mr. Smith, at a prick of Conscience too keen to be endured,\nbellowed aloud, with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his\nthree guests were gone.  There he sat alone, a silver-haired and highly\nvenerated old man, in the rich gloom of the crimson-curtained room, with\nno box of pictures on the table, but only a decanter of most excellent\nMadeira.  Yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom of the\ndagger.\n\nNevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter\nwith Conscience, and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not smite\nhim so pitilessly.  Were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat\nin the following fashion: A scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution,\ngreatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale.  The latter,\nin order to produce a sense of reality in the reader's mind, must be\nconceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem, in\nthe glow of fancy, more like truth, past, present, or to come, than\npurely fiction.  The prospective sinner, on the other hand, weaves his\nplot of crime, but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will\nbe executed.  There is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts; in a\ndream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow into his victim's heart, and\nstarts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand.  Thus a novel-writer,\nor a dramatist, in creating a villain of romance, and fitting him with\nevil deeds, and the villain of actual life, in projecting crimes that\nwill be perpetrated, may almost meet each other, half-way between reality\nand fancy.  It is not until the crime is accomplished, that guilt\nclinches its gripe upon the guilty heart, and claims it for its own.\nThen, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if\nunaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousand-fold more virulent by its\nself-consciousness.  Be it considered, also, that men often overestimate\ntheir capacity for evil.  At a distance, while its attendant\ncircumstances do not press upon their notice, and its results are dimly\nseen, they can bear to contemplate it.  They may take the steps which\nlead to crime, impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working\nout a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction, at the\nfinal moment.  They knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves\nresolved to do.  In truth, there is no such thing in man's nature as a\nsettled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very\nmoment of execution.  Let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful\nconsequences of sin will not be incurred, unless the act have set its\nseal upon the thought.\n\nYet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and awful\ntruths are interwoven.  Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with\nthe guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been\npolluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity.  He must feel, that, when\nhe shall knock at the gate of heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life\ncan entitle him to entrance there.  Penitence must kneel, and Mercy come\nfrom the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open!","title":"Fancy's Show-Box (From \"Twice Told Tales\")","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":2271}