The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
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MOBY DICK
CHAPTER 1
© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate.
THE SCARLET LETTER
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
III. THE RECOGNITION
From this intense consciousness of being the
object of severe and universal observation, the
wearer of the scarlet letter was at length
relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the
crowd, a figure which irresistibly took
possession of her thoughts. An Indian in his
native garb was standing there; but the red
men were not so infrequent visitors of the
English settlements that one of them would
have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne
at such a time; much less would he have
excluded all other objects and ideas from her
mind. By the Indian’s side, and evidently
sustaining a companionship with him, stood a
white man, clad in a strange disarray of
civilized and savage costume.
He was small in stature, with a furrowed
visage, which as yet could hardly be termed
aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in
his features, as of a person who had so
cultivated his mental part that it could not fail
to mould the physical to itself and become
manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by
a seemingly careless arrangement of his
heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to
conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was
sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one
of this man’s shoulders rose higher than the
other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving
that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the
figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with
so convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered
another cry of pain. But the mother did not
seem to hear it.
At his arrival in the market-place, and some
time before she saw him, the stranger had bent
his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly at
first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look
inward, and to whom external matters are of
little value and import, unless they bear
relation to something within his mind. Very
soon, however, his look became keen and
penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself
across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly
over them, and making one little pause, with all
its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His
face darkened with some powerful emotion,
which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously
controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a
single moment, its expression might have
passed for calmness. After a brief space, the
convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and
finally subsided into the depths of his nature.
When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne
fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared
to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised
his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and
laid it on his lips.
Then touching the shoulder of a townsman who
stood near to him, he addressed him in a formal
and courteous manner:
“I pray you, good Sir,” said he, “who is this
woman?—and wherefore is she here set up to
public shame?”
“You must needs be a stranger in this region,
friend,” answered the townsman, looking
curiously at the questioner and his savage
companion, “else you would surely have heard
of Mistress Hester Prynne and her evil doings.
She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you,
in godly Master Dimmesdale’s church.”
“You say truly,” replied the other; “I am a
stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely
against my will. I have met with grievous
mishaps by sea and land, and have been long
held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the
southward; and am now brought hither by this
Indian to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will
it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester
Prynne’s—have I her name rightly?—of this
woman’s offences, and what has brought her to
yonder scaffold?”
“Truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden
your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in
the wilderness,” said the townsman, “to find
yourself at length in a land where iniquity is
searched out and punished in the sight of rulers
and people, as here in our godly New England.
Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was the
wife of a certain learned man, English by birth,
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but who had long ago dwelt in Amsterdam,
whence some good time agone he was minded to
cross over and cast in his lot with us of the
Massachusetts. To this purpose he sent his wife
before him, remaining himself to look after
some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some
two years, or less, that the woman has been a
dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of
this learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his
young wife, look you, being left to her own
misguidance—”
“Ah!—aha!—I conceive you,” said the stranger
with a bitter smile. “So learned a man as you
speak of should have learned this too in his
books. And who, by your favour, Sir, may be the
father of yonder babe—it is some three or four
months old, I should judge—which Mistress
Prynne is holding in her arms?”
“Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a
riddle; and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet
a-wanting,” answered the townsman. “Madame
Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the
magistrates have laid their heads together in
vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking
on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and
forgetting that God sees him.”
“The learned man,” observed the stranger with
another smile, “should come himself to look into
the mystery.”
“It behoves him well if he be still in life,”
responded the townsman. “Now, good Sir, our
Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking
themselves that this woman is youthful and
fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her
fall, and that, moreover, as is most likely, her
husband may be at the bottom of the sea, they
have not been bold to put in force the extremity
of our righteous law against her. The penalty
thereof is death. But in their great mercy and
tenderness of heart they have doomed Mistress
Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on
the platform of the pillory, and then and
thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life
to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.”
“A wise sentence,” remarked the stranger,
gravely, bowing his head. “Thus she will be a
living sermon against sin, until the ignominious
letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks
me, nevertheless, that the partner of her
iniquity should not at least, stand on the
scaffold by her side. But he will be known—he
will be known!—he will be known!”
He bowed courteously to the communicative
townsman, and whispering a few words to his
Indian attendant, they both made their way
through the crowd.
While this passed, Hester Prynne had been
standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze
towards the stranger—so fixed a gaze that, at
moments of intense absorption, all other objects
in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving
only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps,
would have been more terrible than even to
meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day
sun burning down upon her face, and lighting
up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy
on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her
arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a
festival, staring at the features that should
have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the
fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or
beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as
it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the
presence of these thousand witnesses. It was
better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him
and her, than to greet him face to face—they
two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the
public exposure, and dreaded the moment when
its protection should be withdrawn from her.
Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a
voice behind her until it had repeated her name
more than once, in a loud and solemn tone,
audible to the whole multitude.
“Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!” said the
voice.
It has already been noticed that directly over
the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was
a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to
the meeting-house. It was the place whence
proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an
assemblage of the magistracy, with all the
ceremonial that attended such public
observances in those days. Here, to witness the
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scene which we are describing, sat Governor
Bellingham himself with four sergeants about
his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of
honour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a
border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black
velvet tunic beneath—a gentleman advanced in
years, with a hard experience written in his
wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head
and representative of a community which owed
its origin and progress, and its present state of
development, not to the impulses of youth, but
to the stern and tempered energies of manhood
and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing
so much, precisely because it imagined and
hoped so little. The other eminent characters by
whom the chief ruler was surrounded were
distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to
a period when the forms of authority were felt
to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions.
They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage.
But, out of the whole human family, it would
not have been easy to select the same number of
wise and virtuous persons, who should be less
capable of sitting in judgment on an erring
woman’s heart, and disentangling its mesh of
good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect
towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her
face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that
whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the
larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for,
as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the
unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled.
The voice which had called her attention was
that of the reverend and famous John Wilson,
the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar,
like most of his contemporaries in the
profession, and withal a man of kind and genial
spirit. This last attribute, however, had been
less carefully developed than his intellectual
gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of
shame than self-congratulation with him. There
he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath
his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to
the shaded light of his study, were winking, like
those of Hester’s infant, in the unadulterated
sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved
portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes
of sermons, and had no more right than one of
those portraits would have to step forth, as he
now did, and meddle with a question of human
guilt, passion, and anguish.
“Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “I have
striven with my young brother here, under
whose preaching of the Word you have been
privileged to sit”—here Mr. Wilson laid his
hand on the shoulder of a pale young man
beside him—“I have sought, I say, to persuade
this godly youth, that he should deal with you,
here in the face of Heaven, and before these
wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all
the people, as touching the vileness and
blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural
temper better than I, he could the better judge
what arguments to use, whether of tenderness
or terror, such as might prevail over your
hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you
should no longer hide the name of him who
tempted you to this grievous fall. But he
opposes to me—with a young man’s oversoftness,
albeit wise beyond his years—that it
were wronging the very nature of woman to
force her to lay open her heart’s secrets in such
broad daylight, and in presence of so great a
multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him,
the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and
not in the showing of it forth. What say you to
it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be
thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner’s
soul?”
There was a murmur among the dignified and
reverend occupants of the balcony; and
Governor Bellingham gave expression to its
purport, speaking in an authoritative voice,
although tempered with respect towards the
youthful clergyman whom he addressed:
“Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the
responsibility of this woman’s soul lies greatly
with you. It behoves you; therefore, to exhort
her to repentance and to confession, as a proof
and consequence thereof.”
The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of
the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr.
Dimmesdale—young clergyman, who had come
from one of the great English universities,
bringing all the learning of the age into our wild
forest land. His eloquence and religious fervour
had already given the earnest of high eminence
in his profession. He was a person of very
striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and
impending brow; large, brown, melancholy
eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he
forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous,
expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast
power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his
high native gifts and scholar-like attainments,
there was an air about this young minister—an
apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened
look—as of a being who felt himself quite
astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human
existence, and could only be at ease in some
seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his
duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy bypaths,
and thus kept himself simple and
childlike, coming forth, when occasion was,
with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy
purity of thought, which, as many people said,
affected them like the speech of an angel.
Such was the young man whom the Reverend
Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so
openly to the public notice, bidding him speak,
in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a
woman’s soul, so sacred even in its pollution.
The trying nature of his position drove the blood
from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous.
“Speak to the woman, my brother,” said Mr.
Wilson. “It is of moment to her soul, and,
therefore, as the worshipful Governor says,
momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers
is. Exhort her to confess the truth!”
The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head,
in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came
forward.
“Hester Prynne,” said he, leaning over the
balcony and looking down steadfastly into her
eyes, “thou hearest what this good man says,
and seest the accountability under which I
labour. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s
peace, and that thy earthly punishment will
thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I
charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellowsinner
and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from
any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for,
believe me, Hester, though he were to step down
from a high place, and stand there beside thee,
on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so
than to hide a guilty heart through life. What
can thy silence do for him, except it tempt
him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add
hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an
open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work
out an open triumph over the evil within thee
and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou
deniest to him—who, perchance, hath not the
courage to grasp it for himself—the bitter, but
wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy
lips!”
The young pastor’s voice was tremulously
sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that
it so evidently manifested, rather than the
direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate
within all hearts, and brought the listeners into
one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby at
Hester’s bosom was affected by the same
influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze
towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little
arms with a half-pleased, half-plaintive
murmur. So powerful seemed the minister’s
appeal that the people could not believe but
that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty
name, or else that the guilty one himself in
whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be
drawn forth by an inward and inevitable
necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold.
Hester shook her head.
“Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of
Heaven’s mercy!” cried the Reverend Mr.
Wilson, more harshly than before. “That little
babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second
and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard.
Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance,
may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy
breast.”
“Never,” replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at
Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes
of the younger clergyman. “It is too deeply
branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I
might endure his agony as well as mine!”
“Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and
sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the
scaffold, “Speak; and give your child a father!”
“I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning
pale as death, but responding to this voice,
which she too surely recognised. “And my child
must seek a heavenly father; she shall never
know an earthly one!”
“She will not speak!” murmured Mr.
Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony,
with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the
result of his appeal. He now drew back with a
long respiration. “Wondrous strength and
generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not
speak!”
Discerning the impracticable state of the poor
culprit’s mind, the elder clergyman, who had
carefully prepared himself for the occasion,
addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin,
in all its branches, but with continual reference
to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he
dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more
during which his periods were rolling over the
people’s heads, that it assumed new terrors in
their imagination, and seemed to derive its
scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit.
Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon
the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an
air of weary indifference. She had borne that
morning all that nature could endure; and as
her temperament was not of the order that
escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon,
her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a
stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of
animal life remained entire. In this state, the
voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly,
but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant,
during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced
the air with its wailings and screams; she
strove to hush it mechanically, but seemed
scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. With
the same hard demeanour, she was led back to
prison, and vanished from the public gaze
within its iron-clamped portal. It was
whispered by those who peered after her that
the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the
dark passage-way of the interior.
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1. Read the following line from the story and select, from the choices below, the literary term
that was employed.
A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them . . .
a. metaphor
b. hyperbole
c. assonance
d. simile
2. At the beginning of the passage, Hester Prynne notices a strange man in the crowd. Describe
her assessment of him and the reaction he evoked in her.
3. Briefly summarize the alleged crime committed by Hester Prynne. What is the “proof” of her
actions? What is her punishment?
4. How does the stranger feel about Hester’s situation after hearing the story of her apparent
misconduct? About which aspect is he particularly concerned?
5. Interpret the following quote:
Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses.
It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face—
they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure . . .
What can you infer?
6. Based not on the act of which she was accused, but on her refusal to reveal the information
that was requested of her, what can you say about Hester Prynne’s character? Why?
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MOBY DICK
by Herman Melville
CHAPTER 1
Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind
how long precisely—having little or no money
in my purse, and nothing particular to interest
me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little
and see the watery part of the world. It is a
way I have of driving off the spleen and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find
myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my
soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily
pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing
up the rear of every funeral I meet; and
especially whenever my hypos get such an
upper hand of me, that it requires a strong
moral principle to prevent me from deliberately
stepping into the street, and methodically
knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it
high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is
my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon
his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is
nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it,
almost all men in their degree, some time or
other, cherish very nearly the same feelings
towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the
Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian
isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it
with her surf. Right and left, the streets take
you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the
battery, where that noble mole is washed by
waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours
previous were out of sight of land. Look at the
crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties
Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward.
What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels
all around the town, stand thousands upon
thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over
the bulwarks of ships from China; some high
aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still
better seaward peep. But these are all
landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and
plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches,
clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the
green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing
straight for the water, and seemingly bound for
a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under
the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not
suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the
water as they possibly can without falling in.
And there they stand—miles of them—leagues.
Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys,
streets and avenues—north, east, south, and
west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses
of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some
high land of lakes. Take almost any path you
please, and ten to one it carries you down in a
dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the
stream. There is magic in it. Let the most
absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his
feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to
water, if water there be in all that region.
Should you ever be athirst in the great
American desert, try this experiment, if your
caravan happen to be supplied with a
metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one
knows, meditation and water are wedded for
ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you
the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most
enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the
valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he
employs? There stand his trees, each with a
hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there
sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage
goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant
woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to
overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their
hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus
tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down
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its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head,
yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye
were fixed upon the magic stream before him.
Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on
scores of miles you wade knee-deep among
Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—
Water—there is not a drop of water there! Were
Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you
travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did
the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly
receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate
whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly
needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip
to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every
robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in
him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?
Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did
you yourself feel such a mystical vibration,
when first told that you and your ship were now
out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians
hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a
separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely
all this is not without meaning. And still
deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus,
who because he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into
it and was drowned. But that same image, we
ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the
image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and
this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going
to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the
eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my
lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I
ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a
passenger you must needs have a purse, and a
purse is but a rag unless you have something in
it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow
quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not
enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;—
no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am
something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a
Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon
the glory and distinction of such offices to those
who like them. For my part, I abominate all
honourable respectable toils, trials, and
tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is
quite as much as I can do to take care of myself,
without taking care of ships, barques, brigs,
schooners, and what not. And as for going as
cook,—though I confess there is considerable
glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on
ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied
broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously
buttered, and judgmatically salted and
peppered, there is no one who will speak more
respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled
fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous
dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis
and roasted river horse, that you see the
mummies of those creatures in their huge bakehouses
the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor,
right before the mast, plumb down into the
forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
True, they rather order me about some, and
make me jump from spar to spar, like a
grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first,
this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It
touches one’s sense of honour, particularly if
you come of an old established family in the
land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or
Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just
previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot,
you have been lording it as a country
schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I
assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and
requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the
Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But
even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain
orders me to get a broom and sweep down the
decks? What does that indignity amount to,
weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New
Testament? Do you think the archangel
Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because
I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks
in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave?
Tell me that. Well, then, however the old seacaptains
may order me about—however they
may thump and punch me about, I have the
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that
everybody else is one way or other served in
much the same way—either in a physical or
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the
universal thump is passed round, and all hands
should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be
content.
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because
they make a point of paying me for my trouble,
whereas they never pay passengers a single
penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary,
passengers themselves must pay. And there is
all the difference in the world between paying
and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps
the most uncomfortable infliction that the two
orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING
PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane
activity with which a man receives money is
really marvellous, considering that we so
earnestly believe money to be the root of all
earthly ills, and that on no account can a
monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully
we consign ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of
the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle
deck. For as in this world, head winds
are far more prevalent than winds from astern
(that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean
maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on
the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second
hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He
thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much
the same way do the commonalty lead their
leaders in many other things, at the same time
that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore
it was that after having repeatedly smelt the
sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it
into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the
invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs
me, and influences me in some unaccountable
way—he can better answer than any one else.
And, doubtless, my going on this whaling
voyage, formed part of the grand programme of
Providence that was drawn up a long time ago.
It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo
between more extensive performances. I take it
that this part of the bill must have run
something like this:
“GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE
PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.
“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
“BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.”
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that
those stage managers, the Fates, put me down
for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when
others were set down for magnificent parts in
high tragedies, and short and easy parts in
genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—
though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet,
now that I recall all the circumstances, I think
I can see a little into the springs and motives
which being cunningly presented to me under
various disguises, induced me to set about
performing the part I did, besides cajoling me
into the delusion that it was a choice resulting
from my own unbiased freewill and
discriminating judgment.
Chief among these motives was the
overwhelming idea of the great whale himself.
Such a portentous and mysterious monster
roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and
distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the
undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale;
these, with all the attending marvels of a
thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped
to sway me to my wish. With other men,
perhaps, such things would not have been
inducements; but as for me, I am tormented
with an everlasting itch for things remote. I
love to sail forbidden seas, and land on
barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I
am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be
social with it—would they let me—since it is
but well to be on friendly terms with all the
inmates of the place one lodges in.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling
voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of
the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and
two there floated into my inmost soul, endless
processions of the whale, and, mid most of them
all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill
in the air.
1. Read the following sentences and select, from the choices below, the word(s) closest in meaning
to the word in bold-faced type.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to
Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward.
a. travel to
b. visit
c. walk around
d. survey
2. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning
to the word in bold-faced type.
It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river
horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.
a. devotions
b. insights
c. thoughts
d. deductions
3. When the narrator goes to sea, he always goes as a
a. cook.
b. passenger.
c. captain.
d. sailor.
4. Herman Melville uses several different examples at the beginning of the story to describe
how he knows his mood is deteriorating. List two of them.
5. How does Melville feel about the water? How do you know? Try to cite a line or lines from the
passage that support your response.
6. When the narrator makes this statement, “Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to
perdition!” to what act is he referring? Why does he mock himself and others in this regard?
7. Discuss the narrator’s feelings about the whaling opportunity. What motivates him to go to
sea for this particular purpose?
© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate.
THE FALL OF THE
HOUSE OF USHER
by Edgar Allan Poe
. . . Sleep came not near my couch—while the
hours waned and waned away. I struggled to
reason off the nervousness which had dominion
over me. I endeavoured to believe that much, if
not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering
influence of the gloomy furniture of the room—
of the dark and tattered draperies, which,
tortured into motion by the breath of a rising
tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the
walls, and rustled uneasily about the
decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually
pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat
upon my very heart an incubus of utterly
causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp
and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the
pillows, and, peering earnestly within the
intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened— I
know not why, except that an instinctive spirit
prompted me—to certain low and indefinite
sounds which came, through the pauses of the
storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence.
Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror,
unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my
clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep
no more during the night,) and endeavoured to
arouse myself from the pitiable condition into
which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro
through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when
a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested
my attention. I presently recognized it as that
of Usher. In an instant afterwards he rapped,
with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered,
bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual,
cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a
species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an
evidently restrained hysteria in his whole
demeanour. His air appalled me—but anything
was preferable to the solitude which I had so
long endured, and I even welcomed his presence
as a relief.
“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly,
after having stared about him for some
moments in silence—“you have not then seen
it?—but, stay! you shall.” Thus speaking, and
having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to
one of the casements, and threw it freely open
to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly
lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a
tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and
one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.
A whirlwind had apparently collected its force
in our vicinity; for there were frequent and
violent alterations in the direction of the wind;
and the exceeding density of the clouds (which
hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the
house) did not prevent our perceiving the
lifelike velocity with which they flew careering
from all points against each other, without
passing away into the distance. I say that even
their exceeding density did not prevent our
perceiving this—yet we had no glimpse of the
moon or stars—nor was there any flashing forth
of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the
huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all
terrestrial objects immediately around us, were
glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly
luminous and distinctly visible gaseous
exhalation which hung about and enshrouded
the mansion.
“You must not—you shall not behold this!” said
I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a
gentle violence, from the window to a seat.
“These appearances, which bewilder you, are
merely electrical phenomena not uncommon—
or it may be that they have their ghastly origin
in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close
this casement;—the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your
favourite romances. I will read, and you shall
listen;—and so we will pass away this terrible
night together.”
The antique volume which I had taken up was
the “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I
had called it a favourite of Usher’s more in sad
jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in
its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which
could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual
ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only
book immediately at hand; and I indulged a
vague hope that the excitement which now
agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for
the history of mental disorder is full of similar
anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly
which I should read. Could I have judged,
indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity
with which he hearkened, or apparently
hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might well
have congratulated myself upon the success of
my design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the
story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist,
having sought in vain for peaceable admission
into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to
make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be
remembered, the words of the narrative run
thus:
“And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty
heart, and who was now mighty withal, on
account of the powerfulness of the wine which
he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley
with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an
obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the
rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising
of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and,
with blows, made quickly room in the plankings
of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now
pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of
the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarmed and
reverberated throughout the forest.”
At the termination of this sentence I started,
and for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me
(although I at once concluded that my excited
fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that,
from some very remote portion of the mansion,
there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might
have been, in its exact similarity of character,
the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of
the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
Launcelot had so particularly described. It was,
beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had
arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of
the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm,
the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which
should have interested or disturbed me. I
continued the story:
“But the good champion Ethelred, now entering
within the door, was sore enraged and amazed
to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit;
but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and
prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue,
which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with
a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a
shield of shining brass with this legend
enwritten—
Who entereth herein, a conquerer hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall
win;
and Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck
upon the head of the dragon, which fell before
him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a
shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so
piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears
with his hands against the dreadful noise of it,
the like whereof was never before heard.”
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a
feeling of wild amazement—for there could be
no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did
actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low
and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted,
and most unusual screaming or grating
sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy
had already conjured up for the dragon’s
unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the
occurrence of the second and most
extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand
conflicting sensations, in which wonder and
extreme terror were predominant, I still
retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid
exciting, by any observation, the sensitive
nervousness of my companion. I was by no
means certain that he had noticed the sounds in
question; although, assuredly, a strange
alteration had, during the last few minutes,
taken place in his demeanour. From a position
fronting my own, he had gradually brought
round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the
door of the chamber; and thus I could but
partially perceive his features, although I saw
that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring
inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his
breast—yet I knew that he was not asleep, from
the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I
© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 154
155 © 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate.
caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of
his body, too, was at variance with this idea—
for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet
constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly
taken notice of all this, I resumed the narrative
of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:
“And now, the champion, having escaped from
the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking
himself of the brazen shield, and of the
breaking up of the enchantment which was
upon it, removed the carcass from out of the
way before him, and approached valorously
over the silver pavement of the castle to where
the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth
tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at
his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty
great and terrible ringing sound.”
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips,
than—as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the
moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver—I
became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled
reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped
to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair
in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly
before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity.
But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder,
there came a strong shudder over his whole
person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips;
and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and
gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my
presence. Bending closely over him, I at length
drank in the hideous import of his words.
“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it.
Long—long—long—many minutes, many
hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared
not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—
I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put
her living in the tomb! Said I not that my
senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard
her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.
I heard them—many, many days ago—yet I
dared not—I dared not speak! And now—tonight—
Ethelred—ha! ha!—the breaking of the
hermit’s door, and the death-cry of the dragon,
and the clangour of the shield!—say, rather, the
rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron
hinges of her prison, and her struggles within
the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither
shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she
not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have
I not heard her footsteps on the stair? Do I not
distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of
her heart? Madman!” here he sprang furiously
to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if
in the effort he were giving up his soul—
“Madman! I tell you that she now stands
without the door!”
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance
there had been found the potency of a spell—the
huge antique panels to which the speaker
pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant,
their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the
work of the rushing gust—but then without
those doors there DID stand the lofty and
enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of
Usher. There was blood upon her white robes,
and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon
every portion of her emaciated frame. For a
moment she remained trembling and reeling to
and fro upon the threshold,—then, with a low
moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her violent and now final
death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse,
and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I
fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all
its wrath as I found myself crossing the old
causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path
a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam
so unusual could have issued; for the vast house
and its shadows were alone behind me. The
radiance was that of the full, setting, and bloodred
moon which now shone vividly through that
once barely-discernible fissure of which I have
before spoken as extending from the roof of the
building, in a zigzag direction, to the base.
While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—
there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—
the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon
my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty
walls rushing asunder—there was a long
tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a
thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn
at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the
fragments of the “House of Usher”.
1. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning
to the word in bold-faced type.
An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very
heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm.
a. evil
b. worry
c. fear
d. joy
2. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning
to the word in bold-faced type.
It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its
terror and its beauty.
a. peaceful
b. serene
c. stormy
d. hazy
3. Ultimately, the house is destroyed by
a. Usher himself.
b. a bolt of lightning.
c. the fierce wind.
d. a raging flood.
4. Describe the appearance of Usher. Was he attractive? Did he appear to be healthy? Explain.
5. Describe the parallel situation which began to unfold between the plot of the story, and the
plot of the book that the narrator is reading to Usher.
6. Who is Lady Madeline? How is she introduced in the story? How does she solve the “mystery”
of Usher’s apparent hallucinations?
© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate.
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