Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in his uncle's closet. When he had finished it, he sunk down on the table near which he had been reading it, his face hid in his folded arms, his senses reeling, his mind in a mingled state of stupor and excitement. After a few moments, he raised himself with an involuntary start, and saw the picture gazing at him from its canvas. He was within ten inches of it as he sat, and the proximity appeared increased by the strong light that was accidentally thrown on it, and its being the only representation of a human figure in the room. Melmoth felt for a moment as if he were about to receive an explanation from its lips.
He gazed on it in return,--all was silent in the house,--they were alone together. The illusion subsided at length: and as the mind rapidly passes to opposite extremes, he remembered the injunction of his uncle to destroy the portrait. He seized it;--his hand shook at first, but the moldering canvas appeared to assist him in the effort. He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific, half triumphant,--it fell at his feet, and he shuddered as it fell.
He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginable breathings of prophetic horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for such he felt it, to tear the portrait of his ancestor from his native walls. He paused and listened:--"There was no voice, nor any that answered;"--but as the wrinkled and torn canvas fell to the floor, its undulations gave the portrait the appearance of smiling. Melmoth felt horror indescribable at this transient and imaginary resuscitation of the figure. He caught it up, rushed into the next room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in the turf fire which had been lit in his room. As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope of a deep and intense sleep. He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted both in mind and body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had hoped for. The sullen light of the turf fire, burning but never blazing, disturbed him every moment. He turned and turned, but still there was the same red light glaring on, but not illuminating, the dusky furniture of the apartment. The wind was high that night, and as the creaking door swung on its hinges, every noise seemed like the sound of a hand struggling with the lock, or of a foot pausing on the threshold. But (for Melmoth never could decide) was it in a dream or not, that he saw the figure of his ancestor appear at the door?--hesitatingly as he saw him at first on the night of his uncle's death,--saw him enter the room, approach his bed, and heard him whisper, "You have burned me, then; but those are flames I can survive.--I am alive,--I am beside you." Melmoth started, sprung from his bed,--it was broad daylight. He looked round,--there was no human being in the room but himself. He felt a slight pain in the wrist of his right arm.
He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of a strong hand.
Balzac's tale, Melmoth Reconciled, in Vol. IV., furnishes a solution to the terrible problem which Maturin has stated in this story.--EDITOR'S NOTE.
Introduction to "A Mystery with a Moral"
The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy" appeared. "A most unclerical clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.
Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree. Plot concerned him least of all authors of fiction.
For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages. He used to declare that he never intended anything--he never knew whither his pen was leading--the rash implement, once in hand, was likely to fly with him from Yorkshire to Italy--or to Paris--or across the road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the helpless author do but improve each occasion?
So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequels--heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of this random philosopher.
Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration. No less a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied that "his works consist only of brilliant passages."
And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an "Application" of worldly wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness--they have felt emboldened to ascribe the passage "A Mystery with a Moral."
As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote. He sought the South of France for health in 1762, and was run after and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs.
This foreign sojourn failed to cure his lung complaint, but suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental Journey." Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18, 1768, Sterne died alone in his London lodgings.
Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1 live, if only for the exquisite literary art which ever made great things out of little.--The EDITOR.
Laurence Sterne A Mystery with a Moral Parisian Experience of Parson Yorick, on his "Sentimental Journey"
