Text: Ruth Leigh Hudson, “Chapter IV.II,” Poe's Craftsmanship in the Short Story, dissertation, 1935, pp. 366-412 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 366, continued:]

One phase of Poe's humor which has, to my knowledge, received no extended treatment is his characterization of the devil in certain of his stories. In presenting Satan as a casual member of society, he was in line with the fashion of his times. It will be of interest, therefore, to examine some of the portrayals of the devil in the literature of the early nineteenth century and, to compare these Poe's treatment of the same character.

There is no more interesting phase of the Romantic movement than its unaccountable canonization of the “mocker of mankind.” We are familiar, of course, with the sinister figure of the devil as he appears in such novels as Vathek, The Monk, and Melmoth the Wanderer, and in the works of Byron. But in [page 367:] the 1820's and 1830's he made his appearance with increasing frequency as a well-bred, cultivated man of the world or as a mischievous prankster and buffoon. Like every other fantastic element of the time, diablerie was credited with a German origin, but it appears to have been generally recognized that the German variety was of “a monstrous” and “terrible” stamp.”(21) In one of Hoffmann's tales, called in translation “The Life of a Well-Known Character,” there is a gentleman of fine and distinguished appearance who develops sinister traits and disappears finally as a monstrous bat. The “bretheren” of the Serapion club commented upon this tale related by Lothair and particularly upon his manner of characterizing the devil. Ottmar declared that “the character of the German Satan has a strong tincture of the burlesque mixed up with the more predominant quality of mind-disturbing terror — that horror oppresses the mind and disorganizes it.” He added, “Now, the art of portraying [page 368:] the Devil in this distinctly German fashion seems to be very much lost. For the aforesaid amalgamation of his characteristics does not seem to occur in any of the more recent attempts at representing him.”(22)

But this burlesque figure of the devil was not lost to the literature of the nineteenth century, for he was preserved perfectly and perfected in the treatments of satanic legend which the French imported from Germany. They had had him in their midst ever since Don Cleophas liberated him from a glass-bottle in LeSage's novel, Le Diable boiteux, 1707, and went travelling about Europe with his engaging companion. But not until he came with his passport from Germany was his status definitely established among the French. Maximilian Rudwin asserts that “Satan was the very fount and foundation of the Romantic School” and that the French, in particular, found Faust, especially in the diabolical parts, so strongly appealing to their imaginations that they almost deified Mephistopheles.(23) According to Professor Rudwin, Faust [page 369:] made little impression in France until it was successfully translated in 1828 by Gèrard de Nerval. Almost immediately there arose a burst of imitations, particularly of the diablerie parts, and a host of plays and fictions dealt with the devil in burlesque or horrible vein. Shortly after the translation of Faust, the tales of Hoffmann began also to appear in translation in France, and a veritable Hoffmann cult sprang up which resulted in the popularization of the terms, fantastique and fantainie, and led to the production of innumerable tales in his manner.(24)

Lady Morgan had occasion to comment, in her France in 1829-1830, upon the attitude of the French toward presentations or the devil in the theater. A caller described for her a place called “The Creation which he was planning: [page 370:]

Thackeray, also a visitor in France in the early 1830's, was struck by the fondness of the French for plays of this nature. He wrote in his Paris Sketch Book,”(26) “What a number of plays and legends have we ... [page 371:] in which that great and powerful aristocrat, the Devil, is made to be miserably tricked, humiliated, and disappointed!”

Thackeray also gave an indication of the nature of the stories current in France which portrayed the devil as an earthly visitor and participant in human affairs. In his Paris Sketch Book he related two devil stories current in France during his stay there, one being of Polish, the other or French origin. These tales were first published in British periodicals and later collected for his volume of sketches. “The Devil's Wager” belongs to the year, 1833.(27) It is a medieval fantasy-piece done in exactly the manner described by Hoffmann as an amalgamation of the burlesque and mind-disturbing terror.” Mercurius, messenger of daemons, was bearing the soul of Sir Roger de Rollo, from Purgatory, “bound to those regions of fire and flame where poor sinners fry and roast in saceula saeculorum.” Sir Roger mourned the accident of death which had cut short, his sister's aves for his soul just as he needed but one more to rescue his from purgatory. He suggested to the messenger that he might be able to find one of his remaining [page 372:] relatives who would say a prayer for him. “‘Aves’ with them are raras aves, replied Mercuius, wagging his tail right waggishly,” but he agreed to a wager upon the subject. Failing to persuade his niece or drunken nephew to offer up the required prayer, Roger turned dubiously to his brother, the prior. Mercurius assured him that this was hopeless, since the prior was under bond not to pray upon penalty of immediately losing body and soul to the devil. By trickery Roger contrived interview his brother alone and, by posing as the bearer of a heavenly warning, to persuade him to say a prayer. Thereupon Mercurius carried off the prior instead of Roger. “And he flew alongside of Mercurius to the steepletop; but this time the devil had not his tail around his neck. ... ‘I believe, my Lord,’ said the daemon, politely, ‘that our ways separate here.’ Mercurius smiled down, Sir Roger up, hearing as he went the screams of the prior being dashed to pieces on the iron spikes and buttresses of the church.

The other story which seemed novel enough to Thackeray to be worth introducing to the English readers as a specimen of the current French diablerie [page 373:] was “The Painter's Bargain,”(28) which Thackeray attributed to a French origin. Simon Gambouge, an artist, one day took stock of his troubles and found them overwhelmingly numerous: he was deep in debt and his formerly charming wife, Sriskinissa, had turned shrew. Disconsolately, as he sat one day before his easel, he uttered a statement that brought new difficulties.

Gambouge followed the directions given him by the voice, and a little imp spurted out upon the palette, a tiny blood-colored imp the size of a tad-pole, which expanded marvelously in size, jumped off the palette, and turned a somersault. The newcomer warned Gambouge that his affairs were in such a state that only a [page 374:] settlement of some kind with Diabolus himself would extricate him.

Gambouge came to very agreeable terms with his visitor and received a promise of seven years in which to gratify his every wish. By and by in the midst of his ill-gotten riches, he began to forget the bargain and to grow very pious and moral. One day when he was dining with his confessor in a cafe, “a respectable old gentleman, with a number of orders in his buttonhole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before which reposed Simon and his friend,” and began reading what appeared to be an English newspaper. At length he handed Simon the paper to read; Simon turned pale and left the cafe. He grew yet more pious and made more outrageous demands [page 375:] upon the devil who performed them all punctiliously. Six months before the expiration of Simonis contract he gave a sumptuous feast to which he invited all his friends. After dinner he summoned his diabolical servant to appear.

Simon order Diabolus to take Madame Griskinissa, his wife, and live with her for the remaining six months of the term agreed upon; must not leave her, must obey her whims and caprices, and listen to her abuse. Diabolus begged for mercy; he offered Simon a new ten years, a century; he howled hideously at his sentence. Simon remained firm. Thereupon Diabolus grinned horribly, gnashed his teeth, threw the contract down, trampled upon it, and vanished. Simon was awakened at his easel where he had fallen asleep by a mighty box upon the ear from Griskinissa.

It will be noted that in both of the sketches Thackeray the devil was outwitted by his human [page 376:] adversaries, though he himself remained fair and punctilious, just as the Duc de L’Omelette in Poe's early story cozened him by cheating at cards. Hoffmann, in the person of Ottmar in the Serapionsbrüder, commented upon this trait in Satan: “Yet he is a thoroughly fair and honorably dealing personae, abiding by his compacts and contracts in the most accurate and punctilious manner. From this it results that he is often outwitted so that he appears in the character of a ‘stupid’ Devil.”(29) The Diabolus of the second story appeared to Gambouge in the traditionally convenient way, just as the poor human being had unconsciously revealed himself as ripe for dealings with the infernal visitor. He made his appearance to Gambouge also as a very respectable character upon occasion, though he acknowledged that he bore certain concealed traces of his satanic nature, as did Bon-Bon's visitor.

Charles Nadier pictured the same gentlemanly devil in his story “La Combe de L’Homme Mort,” (1833) but not without a touch of mind-disturbing terror in the conclusion which perhaps owed its origin to the Faust legend. In the person of a slender little man clad entirely in red from top of toe, he arrived on [page 377:] the eve of All Saints’ Day at an inn just at the mouth of a narrow gulch in the Jura mountains, in company with a doctor of distinguished appearance. From Dame Hubert of the inn they heard the story of the treachery of a young clerk thirty years before to his master, the good priest Odilon, who had brought prosperity and happiness to the little valley. The little man appeared to hear the story with glee, while the doctor listened with distaste. Presently they took their leave from the inn, the doctor morosely, the little man, Colas Papelin, “avec la grâce coquette d’un homme du monde éléve dans les belles études et les manières élégantes.” Next day in the gulch the villagers, on their way to the All Saints’ service, found the horribly mangled and ravaged body of the doctor, recognizable only by his elegant hat and cloak; he was the treacherous clerk who after thirty years had had to pay his debt to the devil on the spot where the compact was originally signed.(30) Nodier's “L’Amour et le Grimoire” (1332) is a burlesque of the Faust story done with a lighter touch than “La Combe de L’Homme Mort.” Young Maxime attempted [page 378:] to summon the devil to his apartment to aid him in winning a certain Marguerite. He resorted to books or sorcery and fearful incantations, but the devil refused to listen to the amateurish summons. Marguerite appeared by accident, and Maxime was horrified by his act, for he felt sure that her escort who awaited below was the devil himself. The tone of the story is gay and youthful, and it merely dabbles on the outskirts of diablerie in a playful way.(31)

Théophile Gautier characterized the devil with sardonic humor in his poem, Albertus (1832). Suave and superior to feminine blandishments, young Albertus fell victim to Veronica, a hag disguished [[disguised]] as a supremely beautiful girl. She bore him away to a witches’ revels where the assemblage awaited the Master. Fearfully Albertus expected to see “an apparition horrid” with tail, horns, and hoofs.

The odor of the motley company was unbearable, the devil sneezed and, Albertus said politely, “God bless you.” The whole company vanished like magic; Albertus felt sharp claws and teeth tearing him. Next morning his distorted body was found by peasants on the Appian way.

Somewhere in the progress of the legends about Satan, he acquired renown as a musician with a preference, however, for the violin. Poe, it will be remembered, depicted the “Devil in the Belfry,” as wielding a huge violin which he alternately played with no evidence of skill however, and wielded as a club. Gérard de Nerval wrote three stories dealing with this phase of the devil's powers, ‘les Deux notes”(33) (1831), which relates the story of a compact between the violinist Paganini and the devil by which the Italian contracted for diabolical skill on his instrument: “Ugolino” (1833), in which a lunatic virtuoso sold himself and his child in order to obtain a miraculous violin from the devil; and “La Sonate du Diable” (1830), in which the devil displayed his musical ability in order to enter into competition for the hand of a young girl, promised by her father [page 380:] to the composer and player of the best sonata. The latter tale is of interest in that the devil again outwitted in his infernal designs and forced to render unending musical service.(34)

Heinrich Heine, who boasted himself more French than the French, caught some of the Gallic burlesquerie in his conception of the devil and his habitation. A little poem included in his Reisebilder and called “Ich rief den Teufel und er Kam,” gives, I think, an excellent account, done humorously of course, of a German's reaction to the French devil:

The same cynical humor is displayed by Heine in his comment upon Hell in Reisebilder:

It will be seen that the French had succeeded in making a really interesting man of the world out of Diabolus, one adroit in flattery, courteous and gallant in conduct, brilliant in conversation. He was not only an accomplished musician, but a profound thinker along philosophical lines of every kind, a skilled theologian, a master of metaphysics, and expert in all the science. He circulated in human society, of course, for the purpose of furthering his [page 382:] business affairs, but he conducted them with tact and consideration, as well as with punctiliousness. It was perhaps, the rationalizing mind of the French which transformed the German devil of more horrible aspect into a humorous deux ex machina in much of the satirical literature of the time. It is doubtful that Poe had much direct contact with the contemporary French literature of 1830 or that he read any of the French stories to which I have referred, at least early enough for them to have had any effect upon his own characterizations of the devil.(37) But the influence came to him through a few English tales done in imitation of the French and through the well-known story which appears to have been widely read in Poe time, The Wonderful Story of Peter Schlemihl, written by Adelbert Chamisso, a German of French extraction. Either this story of Peter Schlemihl and his lost shadow had been quite generally read or the allusion to the central incident of the tale so was well known that references to it became a stock phrase in literature. [page 383:] Poe himself alluded to the tale in one of his earliest stories, “A Decided Loss”;

He referred to it also upon other occasions.(39) Peter Schlemihl met the devil upon the occasion of a call which he paid an acquaintance; a strange man in gray performed miraculous feats of producing telescopes, tents, carpets, and the like for the comfort of the party. When Peter left the company, he found himself followed and addressed obsequiously by the mysterious gray man:

The outcome of the conversation was that Peter sold his shadow to the gray man in exchange for Fortunatus’ wishing cap and the lucky purse with endless wealth. Peter was hated and feared for being shadowless, for it was generally assumed that he had been dealing with that other personage who was reputed to cast no shadow. Upon various occasions the gray man visited Peter and tempted him to re-purchase his shadow in exchange for his soul. Peter resisted these temptations and found happiness eventually by wearing the famous seven-league boots and travelling about the world. The devil of this story is obsequious, accommodating, persistent, soft-spoken; he is skilled in metaphysics and philosophy; but, withal, only “a poor devil, a sort of learned man and doctor, who in return for precious arts receives from his friends poor thanks, and, for himself; has no other amusement on earth but to make his little experiments.” The tale itself is a sort of grown-up fairy-story, clever, ironical, sprightly, beneath which lies a not too cleverly hidden moral.

At least one writer of the same kind of story in England made acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Chamisso. When Robert Macnish sent his first story, “The Metempsychosis,” to Blackwood's, he wrote a letter in which he attempted to explain the outré tone of his story: [page 385:]

In spite of its being a different kind of story, it evidently met with approval in England. Blackwood's urged Macnish to write more of the sane nature and continued to publish his tales until he formed new connection with Fraser's after its establishment in 1830. After his death and the publication of the volume of his stories edited by Moir, a Fraser's reviewer spoke in glowing terms of Macnish's tales. Of “The Metempsychosis” he wrote:

It appears to us the best fiction of its kind in our language. The humour is exquisite, — rich, easy, flowing, and unforced. There is nothing like antithesis or point in. the sentences; and so much the better. ... There is a fine faith, too, about the narrative, which, strange and wild as it is, from the earnest manner in which it is related, has a convincing air, and bears the character of a truth.(42) [page 386:]

After sketching the plot of the tale, the reviewer commented upon the magnificent humour, its gravity, droll pathos, and “natural un-naturalness.” He termed it “the sublime turned topsy-turvy.” Macnish's other stories, he wrote, were full of “the genuine absurd, the sublime or the ludicrous.”

“The Metempsychosis,”(43) the longest of Macnich's fictions, deals with the Pythagorean doctrine of transference of souls in a style “half banter, half serious”; one is inclined to believe that its author agreed with Isaac Disraeli, whom Poe quoted aa asserting “there is no system so simple, and so little repugnant to the understanding” an metempsychosis.(44) Wolstang, a student at the University of Göttingen, acquired by a diabolical compact, the ability to exchange bodies with any other individual he chose as his victim. Another student, Froderick Stadt found himself suddenly incarcerated in the body of Wolstang and involved, consequently, in a series of misadventures. Among other things, he fell into disfavor with the authorities of the university, interviewed [page 387:] the devil on numerous occasions, refused satanic offers of assistance in extricating himself from his difficulties, died, underwent some moments of horror when he believed himself in the grave, regained consciousness on a dissecting table, and resumed life as Frederick Stadt. Thus summarized, the tale sounds very much like a composite of Poe's favorite themes. It is chiefly of interest to us, however, at this point as an example of burlesque and grotesquerie in its characterization and particularly in the figure of the devil who plays an important part in its complication.

When Frederick Stadt found himself universally accepted as Wolstang, he was forced to take up his quarters in the latter's apartment. He found there a strange little man to welcome him.

Still bewildered by his new body and strange surroundings, Frederick apologized to the stranger for his presumption in intruding.

Stadt's new acquaintance was annoyingly fidgety and talkative. He giggled, sneezed, took snuff, but talked philosophy.

They talked of the doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim, and Stadt had occasion to speak of the beauty, of Cicero's head which he had seen in the Louvre.

To the further amazement of Stadt, the little man produced a number of other heads upon request, and then offered to show the head of Pythagoras. The student scorned Pythagoras as the author of a preposterous system of philosophy, full of absurdities, especially in that which concerned his “monstrous doctrine of the transmigration of souls.” [page 390:]

This turn in the conversation brought up then the question of Stadt's predicament and led, to the devil's producing scales to weigh Stadt and convince him that he had increased in size. Stadt ran so stunned by this evidence of his transformation that he allowed his visitor to withdraw quietly.

A later interview with this same little man revealed to Stadt that in an unfortunate moment of drunkenness he had signed a paper which allowed Wolstang to make free use of his body.

When Stadt attempted to prove that the large scales in the next room had never really existed, he found them there again. He learned further that he had signed the contract in his or blood, and that the little man had been present at the transaction dressed as a clergyman. He offered Stadt the remedy for his situation by signing another paper giving over his [page 391:] soul, at death, to the “owner of this book,” a mall manuscript book in the possession of the stranger.

The remaining three sections of the story deal with Stadt's attempts to avenge himself upon Wolstang and to bring him to some kind of terms in order to regain his own body. Eventually he accomplished this by dying as Wolstang and re-occupying the body of Stadt, who had died a day or two earlier.

Macnish also knew how to create the jesting mischievous devil as well as the one addicted to bargaining. In this rôle he appeared in “The Barber of Göttigen.”(45)

The Barber protested, when the newcomer demanded a shave, that he was forbidden by the college authorities to shave a stranger. Thereupon the stranger threatened to shave the Barber and gave indications not only of shaving him but of cutting his throat; so the terrified Barber began a shaving process which lasted most of the night. Hours passed; the customer whistled and sang good-humoredly; but each time the Barber tried to stop, the stranger cried, “Brush away, old boy, there's nothing like it.” He refreshed the Barber with a drink from a bottle labelled, “Elixir Diaboli of Dr. Faustus,” and turned on, for better lighting, his luminous eyes. At that the Barber threw array his soap-box, exclaimed, “Oh, lord, I have shaved the devil,” and ran through the churchyard and up into the tower of the steeple. The stranger pursued him to the very top of the tower, laughed gleefully, and cried out again, “Brush away!” When the Barber confessed that he had thrown his soap-box and brush away, the stranger exclaimed, “I’me a mind to throw you away.” Thereupon he seized the Barber's nose and held him out over the gulf; then he dropped him — “body and soul, tumbled headlong through the abyss of space, a descent of one hundred and thirty [page 393:] feet: Down, down he rent, whirling round like a shuttlecock, sometimes his feet upwards, sometimes his head.” His adversary leaned on the parapet above, laughing madly, eyes glaring, The Barber found himself approaching the earth slowly; he awakened in his own bed.

In a later story, ‘Terence O’Flaherty,” the “Modern Pythagorean” sketched again this mischievous devil, though upon the occasion of his visit to the “little, red-headed tailor, who lived down in Kilrandy,” the devil combined business and pleasure.(46)

The interview continued in the way that Terence, if he had had his wits about him, might have expected. The visitor produced, a small blank paper-book, a phial of red ink, and a pen, and requested Terence's signature. Terence signed willingly, for he neglected to read the contract. He swore “by Jasus” that the stranger was a Christian gentleman and pled forgiveness when his visitor reprimanded him. He took snuff with his guest, which smelled “confoundedly of brimstone,” and drank glass after glass of the good poteen which the obliging stranger proffered. Presently he noticed that his guest's eyes had grown very luminous and he discovered other indications of his benefactor's true nature.

Nor was this all; for, whenever the stranger was highly tickled with anything that Terence said., there was hoard a rustling and wagging, backwards and forwards, as if something underneath the table swept the floor. [page 395:]

As soon as Terence was convinced of the identity of his visitor, he requested some music. The devil agreed to fiddle, provided Judy were awakened to dance. But Terence undertook to display his own abilities as a dancer; his scissors, needles, goose, board, the tongs, and all the furniture danced gaily with him.(47) His “reverence stood up, stamped with his cloven feet, and wagged his tail in all directions in long spiral turns.” In the midst of the merriment, [page 396:] Judy's head popped through the door; instantly music and dancing stopped. Judy grabbed the poker to hit Terence just as the devil stepped between them. Her blows on his head had no worse effect than causing two black horns to sprout. He began his fiddling again, and Judy was constrained to dance; the door opened, and the fiddling devil and dancing Judy disappeared into the darkness. The next morning when Terence had slept off the effects of the good poteen, he discovered that Judy was really gone. Some said she had eloped with a soldier who had been in the neighborhood — but nobody knows!(48)

When Macnish's characterizations of the devil are compared with those of Poe, the resemblance in their conceptions, in their humor, and in their styles appears so obvious that one is inclined to conclude that the American tale-writer almost certainly owed a debt to the Scotch physician. There is always the [page 397:] incalculable unknown to be taken into consideration, however; one must consider that they may possibly have been familiar with the same sources or that some disciple of the “Modern Pythagorean's” manner may in turn have been Poe's master. Since Poe is known, however, to have read Blackwood's during the very years that Macnish was contributing to it, the probability of his familiarity with “The Metempsychosis” and “Barber of Göttingen” is great. ‘Terence O’Flaherty,” which in certain details has more resemblance to “Bon-Bon” than either of the other tales, he may not have seen, since it appeared in a British annual.(49)

It must not be forgotten, too, that both young tale-writers were indebted to the current French conception of burlesque devil. Poe's indebtedness to this source was probably largely indirect in his early years; Macnish had direct contact, with the French. He travelled in France and lived there for a year in [page 398:] 1825, during the very months when he was most likely shaping the tales which were published by Blackwood's in 1826. He also returned to Paris for a sojourn of some weeks in 1828. There is no indication in the letters published by Moir in The Modern Pythagorean that he made acknowledgment of his kinship with the French, but it is interesting incidentally to know that his first to stories have so much of the French tone that they have been mistaken for genuine works of Gérard de Nerval, their French translator. Both in the Aventures, Burlesques and Fantastiques (Éditions de la Banderole, Paris, 1923) and In the Oeuvres Complètes, published under the direction of Artiside Marie, Jules Marsan, and Édouard Champion (Four volumes, Paris, 1926-1932), “La Métempsychose” and “Le Barbier de Goettingue,” each signed “und Pythagoricien moderne,” are included as original stories by de Nerval. They were published in their French form in le Mercure du XIXe siecle in 1830, a journal to which de Nerval was contributing both translations and original articles. M. Marsan, the editor of volume II, Nouvelles et fantaisies (1928) of the complete works, refers in his introduction to the injustice hitherto done to de Nerval by the failure [page 399:] of his editors to include these early stories in his work, since they show his early preoccupation with themes and ideas which were to be his throughout his life. “Le Métempsychose,” M. Marsan states, is the most important of these newly recovered compositions of de Nerva1's.(50)

I suggested above that Poe may have followed some disciple of Macnish in his characterization of the devil. It is possible that this intervening figure was Dalton, chiefly known to Poe students today as the author of “Peter Snook,” which Poe admired and reviewed in detail during his connection with the Messenger. Poe referred to him as a magazinist and had evidently followed his writings in that form; but they have come down to us today a volume publications. Poe's discussion in this early review, of the unknown Magazinist, leaves no doubt, I think, that he had intimate acquaintance with Dalton's various works.

Poe did not mention The Gentleman in Black in his comments upon the work of Dalton with which he was familiar. This may indicate that he had not read it; but I think it may also indicate that he did not think it necessary to call attention to the tale of Da1ton's to which he may have been most indebted for his characterization of the devil in “Bon-Bon.” Both The Gentleman in Black and The Invisible Gentleman are stories of diablerie and transactions with mysterious powers, done in a gay, whimsical tone. The first of these ta1es,(52) of volume-length, is an out [page 401:] and out story of a devil compact entered into by a young Frenchman and a young Englishman. Both were involved in ruinous financial troubles and accepted gladly the services of their opportune caller, who agreed to furnish them with unlimited resources, provided they in turn contracted to sin for one second the first year, two seconds the second year, and so on in increasing amounts in the course of their live. For a time they enjoyed their great freedom and power, but, eventually, as all those who come to terms with the devil are said to do, they regretted their bargains. The Englishman found a lawyer shrewder than the devil and succeeded in tricking the devil out of his due. He then passed on to his friend, the Frenchman, who had been spending money and time in vain consultations with the church officials, the secret of his cunning. With the aid of the same clever English lawyer, the Frenchman also wormed out of his contract, and the poor devil was defrauded of all the money and advice he had given his erstwhile henchmen.

In order to see clearly the resemblance between Dalton's and Poe's treatments, it is necessary to quote some of the more significant passages. The story opens with Louis Desonges sitting dejectedly over his notes and bills in his apartment. [page 402:]

The gentleman in black proceeded at once to the heart of Louis's difficulties. He proposed his term, read Louis's objections in his mind, and brought about an agreement with little difficulty. Then and Louis grew comradely over their wine. The visitor pronounced an exquisitely cut black glass bottle of smelling salts, took snuff from a black tortoiseshell and gave Louis for his financial transactions a black morocco purse, his own being a black satin one of endless length. He objected violently to swearing and threatened to depart if Louis repeated his offense. [page 403:]

The same obliging gentleman found Charles Maxwell, an Englishman, in difficulties a few days later and offered him relief from him troubles in the same fashion and upon the same terms as those given Desonges. Charles and his guest became great friends immediately and celebrated the occasion of their meeting by an all-night drinking bout. In the course of the evening Charles became aware that his gentlemanly caller bore physical traces of his infernal nature.

In the course of the transactions to relieve Charles and Louis from fulfilling the bargains they had come to regret, the English lawyer and the gentleman in black found themselves kindred spirits and almost came to terms themselves. Bagsby, the lawyer, found the devil most amusing and laughed heartily at the other's wit. “He, he, he, ha, ha, ha! chuckled [page 404:] Bagsby. “Ho, ho, ho! oh dear!” When Bagsby went to France in behalf of the affairs of Desonges, he accosted or ship-board and very nearly entrapped by the marvelous spectacles, from a black shagreen case and mounted in black tortoise-shell, the devil lent him. He unwittingly saved himself in this crisis by swearing; in anger the devil snatched the glasses away and with them the illusion which had ensnared Bagsby.

Several of these details in The Gentleman in Black are echoed in Poe's stories of diablerie, as we shall see somewhat later. Likewise, there is come similarity between Poe's tales and The Invisible Gentleman.(53) This resemblance may be due merely to the style and whimsical tone characteristic of Dalton. But this novel must be considered briefly as a possible source of influence upon Dalton's American admirer, who spoke of it with warm praise. It is a two-volume romance concerned with the love affair of one Bernard Audrey and Alicia Stover. All went well with then until Bernard one day unthinkingly wished [page 405:] to be invincible in order to hear his fiancée and her two friends discussing him. It was mere chance that he made the visit three times, but that happened to be a fatal number. He heard a cough, looked up, and beheld a stranger walking leisurely toward him and coughing warningly as he came.

The new-comer apologized intrusion, and begged to be allowed to sit down. He told Bernard that he had heard him wish for invisibility and had come to impart this gift to him if he really meant the wish. Believing his visitor an escaped lunatic, Bernard humored him by letting him anoint his ears with a mysterious potion; then he discovered in amazement that he really had acquired the gift of making himself invisible at will. He had entered into no compact with the stranger, who disappeared as soon as he had passed his gift on to Bernard, and he could in no wa explain the extraordinary performance. [page 406:]

He began to practice his trick of invisibility as a joke, but it soon led him into difficulties; he lost his scruples, lied, eavesdropped, stole, and resorted to all kinds of practices not in keeping with his usually honorable nature, in order to try to extricate himself from the web of deceits into which he had allowed himself to be led by his strange power. Near the end of the second volume devoted to Bernard's troubles, a hearty, joyful yeoman appeared to him one day upon the spot where he had received the fatal gift and told Bernard that he was the thin, elderly gentleman who had imparted invisibility to him. Since ridding himself of it, he had prospered in health and happiness; and his pity for Bernard led him to reveal that the owner of the gift had only to find some one else who would three times express a desire for invisibility in order to pass it on to the other. Bernard was persuaded by his elderly uncle to pass the power to him, he imparted it to a miserly financier who ridded mortals both of his own presence and the troublesome gift by dying.

The story of The Invisible Gentleman is not one of true diablerie; there is no indication of an infernal hand in the transactions, and the character of [page 407:] the jolly yeoman who appeared to rescue Bernard from his miseries dispelled any suspicion that the cadaverous, elderly gentle interview with Bernard had diabolical intentions. However, the tale is written with the same half-bantering air of playing with mysterious secrets which marks The Gentleman in Black.

Included among Dalton's stories in The Old Maid's Talisman is a clever little sketch, called “Follow Your Nose,” which affords us another glimpse of diabolical ways. Gaspar Wienbrenner did nothing all day except puff upon his pipe and plan pipe-sticks from his inherited cherry trees. He refused all intercourse with his neighbors and others who passed by his home: but he delighted to greet them jeeringly with the odd injunction, “Follow your nose.” One day a stranger of striking appearance passed by, and Gaspar accosted him in the same insulting fashion. If he had but known the true nature of the stranger, he would not have trifled thus with him.

The stranger literally followed his nose through Gaspar's hedge, his house, his kitchen stove and the already prepared dinner, his store of pipe-sticks, and his cherry-orchard, leaving behind him destruction in a broad, black line like the path of fire and in the smell of burning sulphur. There was no doubt in the minds of those who looked upon the havoc he had wrought that the devil had passed that way.

All of Dalton's tales have the same tone of playful dabbling with the strange, enough touch of a sinister power at work behind the fun to remind us of the diabolical connections of the visitor. In The Gentleman in Black the stranger was a jolly, companionable, obliging fellow, who announced himself unobtrusively from a corner of the apartment knew fully the difficulties of his host, and evinced a willingness to make merry in a thorough-going way [page 409:] over the bottles of good wine. He displayed a singular preference for black in all his accoutrements, and possessed the mysterious spectacles so often associated with the infernal visitor. He objected violently to swearing, and bore physical evidence of his satanic nature in the tail which he wagged when pleased. His adventures with the young Frenchman and Englishman resulted in his being cozened and outwitted. In The Invisible Gentleman a person of singular appearance, thin and remarkably pale, appeared with a warning cough to answer Bernard's thoughtless wish. Instead of proceeding in the usual fashion to claim his due, he turned out to be a benevolent human being who informed Bernard how to extricate himself from his difficulties. It would seem that Dalton merely changed his mind as to what he meant to make of the story and transformed a perfectly good devil-tale so that it just missed implications of infernal dealings. Again in “Follow Your Nose,” the “strange personage” with uncomfortably piercing eyes and “a swarthy, meagre visage” gave evidence of mischief, or malice, and left behind unmistakable signs of his diabolical nature. All of these characteristics are duplicated in one or another of Poe's portrayals of the devil. [page 410:]

Another interesting trace of the possible influence of Dalton upon Poe's work may be found in his description of the laughter of his characters. I have already alluded to the laughter of Bagsby in The Gentleman in Black, to his peculiar variation of the vowel sounds in “He, he, he! Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!” Gaspar gave vent to the same bizarre laughter in “Fellow Your Nose.” “Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!” shouted Gaspar when the stranger crashed through the hedge, “that's one way of following your nose, sure enough! He, he, he! How do you like it? Ha, ha, ha!”(56) Again, the clever old woman who “bewitched” the lodging house in order that she might have it for her own residence, in “The Lodging House Bewitched,” laughed in a similar fashion. “Lodgings to let! Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho!”(57) It will be remembered, perhaps, that Poe recorded that Bon-Bon's visitor, not Pedro's in “The Bargain Lost,” laughed “long, loudly, wickedly, and uproariously”: “I see you know me, Bon-Bon,” said he: “ha! ha! ha! — he! he! he! — hi! hi! hi! — ho! ho! ho! — hu! hu! hu!” If the devil's laugh had its origin in Dalton's tales, [page 411:] it is clear that Poe decided to improve upon the variations by adding two more vowel sounds to the series. It is more likely, however, that the inspiration for the diabolical laughter came from a Blackwood's review, “upon an Epic Poem by a cockney tailor,” which Poe mentioned in a letter to Judge Tucker in December, 1835. Poe described the chief witticism of the review as being aimed at the poor tailor, “and the notices ended, after innumerable oddities in ‘ha! ha! ha! — he! he! he! — hi! hi! hi! — ho! ho! ho! — hu! hu! hu!”(58) I have not located the critique to which Poe alluded, but there is every likelihood that he had read it somewhere, If not in Blackwood's.

Apparently the particular representation of the devil as an easy-going and fairly comfortable visitor among mortals, often an obliging and gentlemanly person, was not often drawn in English stories. I have been unable to find him circulating freely in England as he seems to have done at the time in France. Coleridge and Southey had caught somewhat this glimpse [page 412:] of him in “The Devil's Walk,” which they wrote in collaboration; but, even in that poem, in spite of his droll appearance, he is represented as deeply concerned with taking stock of the evils he can find in the world. Byron, too, gave him a half-humorous twist in The Deformed Transformed in which he appears to Arnold as a tall black man. He explained to the young lad his choice of a dusky aspect:

The author of “Strange Letter of a Lunatic” in Fraser's(59) also conceived him as a snuff-taking chuckling old gentleman. The story in which he acts a part loses, however, its original lightness of tone, turns into an account of double identity, and after the first few paragraphs deals no further with the devil.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 367:]

21.  A reviewer of Byron's The Deformed Transformed, London Magazine IX March, 1824), 315ff., alluded to a taste for the monstrous ... imported from Germany” in connection with his discussion of the devil's’ part in the play. The writer of a sketch called “A Chapter on Goblins,” in Blackwood's, IV (Dec., 1823), 639ff., objected to this variety of the “German terrible” because it commonly takes the turn of a compact with the fiend, a theme, with which “the English do not pleasantly fall in.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 368:]

22.  The Serapion Bretheren, translated by Major Alex Ewing, London, 1908, II, 7ff. and 18.

23.  The Devil in Legend and Literature, Open Court Publishing Co., 1931, 277.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 369:]

24.  For discussions and illustrations of the Hoffmann influence, see Jules Marsan's Introduction to Volume II, Nouvelles et Fantaisies, Oeuvres Complètes de Gérard de Nerval, Paris, l928; Aristide Marie's Introduction to Volume II, Les Illuminés, of the same edition, 1929; de Nerval's “Fantastique,” volume II,131ff., and “Le Cabaret de La Mère Saguet,” volume I, 225ff.; and the introduction to Jules Janin's Contes Fantastiques, two volumes, Brussels, 1832.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 370:]

25.  Op. cit., I, 76-77. Lady Morgan admitted that she was perplexed by this speech and was unable to recognize whether or not she was the subject of a “mystification.”

26.  This appeared in separate articles in British magazines in the 1830's and was published in collected form in 1840. See the article called “French Dramas and Melodramas,” 278ff., London, 1869.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 371:]

27.  Paris Sketch Book. 190ff.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 373:]

28.  Ibid., 56ff. Published in 1834.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 373:]

29.  Op. cit., 18.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 377:]

30.  Nodier's Contes, Paris, 1846, 185ff.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 378:]

31.  Nouvelles of Nodier, Paris, 1841, 65ff.

32.  Works of Gautier, translated by F. C. Sumicrast, XXIV, Stanza CXIV, 275-6. I have not yet had access to Gautier's works in the original French.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 379:]

33.  L’Artiste, Paris, I (1831), 446ff.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 380:]

34.  For details concerning “Ugolino,” I am indebted to Professor Rudwin's brief summary, op. cit., 206, “La Sonata du Diable,” Aventures Burlesques et Fantasques, Paris, 1923, 137ff.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 381:]

35.  Dated 1826. Charles Leland's translation of Reisebilder, 1858, p. 27. I have given this in translation since my purpose is only to indicate, in general, Heine's reflection of the French attitude.

36.  Ibid., “Ideas: Book Le Grand (1825), 168.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 382:]

37.  For a detailed treatment of the part played by the devil in literature, see Maximilian Rudwin's Satan et le Sataism dans l’OEuvre de Victor Hugo (1925), Supernaturalism and Satanism in Chateaubriand, Romantisme et Satanisme (1927), and The Devil in Legend and Literature, Open Court Publishing Co., 1931.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 383:]

38.  See the early version of the story, Edgar Allan Poe and The Philadelphia Saturday Courier, edited by John Grier Varner, 40.

39.  For similar references to the story, see Bulwer's Pelham, 73, “Mr. Mark Higginbotham's Case of Real Distress” in Smith's Midsummer Medley, 235f., Preface to Hood's Own, Hood's Prose and Verse, N.Y., Wiley & Putnan, 1845.

40.  The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl, Boston, 1899.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 385:]

41.  Quoted by D. M. Moir in his life of Macnish, The Modern Pythagorian, Edinbugh, 1838, in 2 volumes, I, 40.

42.  XIX (June, 1839), 685ff.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 386:]

43.  Blackwood's Magazine, (May, 1826). See the reference to this tale in chapter II, section II.

44.  Pinakidia, S.L.M., 1836. Works, XIV, 56.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 391:]

45.  Ibid., XX (Oct., 1826) 60ff.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 393:]

46.  Published in Ackernan's Forget-Me-Not for 1829. I have used the version in The Modern Pythagorean, II, 323ff.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 395:]

47.  Macnish's indebtedness to Irving in this scene will be recognized; it is similar to the dancing furniture in “The Bold Dragoon,” Tales of A Traveller. This scene was universally commented upon by reviewers of Irving's work as the moot original touch in the book. Scott spoke of it enthusiastically in his article, “On the Supernatural.” Macnish himself and Moir exchanged comments in their letters on the Knickerbocker humor.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 396:]

48.  “Terence O’Flaherty” was refused publication in Blackwood's according to Macnish's biographer Moir. This may have been due to its resemblance to another story current upon the same theme. In a foot note to Heine's “Elementargeister,” (Works, VI, Germany, II, 117) Charles Godfrey Leland mentions a similar story: “Pat O’Flanagan, the tailor, was dancing with mad joy with the Devil, who was fiddling, while both took alternate sups from Satan's whisky bottle. ‘Whin, och what s pity! all at wanst this foine parrety was broken up by the appairence of Judy, Pat's wife.” In the end, the Devil goes off with Mrs. O’Flanagan.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 397:]

49.  I am unable to say whether the British annuals circulated freely in America or not. In the Southern Literary Messenger, II (Dec., 1835), 68, appeared a brief review of the annual for 1836. Several British annuals were mentioned, and it was stated that they “may be obtained at the book-store of Mr. C. Hall” in Richmond.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 399:]

50.  For the details of Marsan's discussion, see his Introduction, Mouvelles et fantasisies, vol. II of OEuvres Completes, Paris, 1928.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 400:]

51.  Review of Peter Snook ... and Other Strange Tales, Southern Literary Messenger, II (Oct., 1836), 727ff.

52.  The Gentleman in Black, Second edition, London, 1831. In his preface dated Nov. 21, 1830, Dalton declared that The Gentleman in Black had been published in part in The Literary Magnet “some years ago.” That periodical was discontinued and the greater part of the volume never appeared. The manuscript had been lost, and when he sought it for continuation, he was forced to rewrite the tale.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 404:]

53.  The Invisible Gentleman, Philadelphia, Carey and Hart, 1833.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 405:]

54.  Ibid., 31.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 408:]

55.  The Old Maid's Talisman and Other Strange Tales, in 3 volumes, London, Bell and Churton, 1834, III, 178.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 410:]

56.  The Old Maid's Talisman and Other Strange Tales, III, 183.

57.  Ibid., III, 205ff.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 411:]

58.  J. S. Wilson, “Unpublished Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, The Century Magazine, CVII (March, 1924), 658ff.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 412:]

59.  II (Dec., 1830), 526ff.