‘Introduction to Literary Studies’

‘Introduction to Literary Studies’

For part ONE I have chosen to discus Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House and I have attached 3 documents used as supplementary reading and only ONE is needed.
For part TWO it requires two readings from two modules. I have chosen to discus Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman from the drama module and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Purloined Letter from the narrative module which I have attached.

Take-Home Exam – in two parts
Due Date: Monday, 9 November, 5PM, to be submitted through Turnitin on vUWS as ONE document.

Part 1: Drama Module
Complete the following task in no less than 750 and no more than 850 words.

In weeks 10-13 of the Drama Module we focussed on the extent to which modern dramatic tragedies could be said to be Aristotelian in kind. We considered the protagonist’s error of judgment, his/her catastrophe, and the audience’s catharsis. Discussions centred around form, mise en scene, dialogue, and rhetoric.

Question:

Drawing on one or more dramatic concepts (above in red) and either Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House OR Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, critically evaluate the following argument by George Steiner:

In tragedy, there are no temporal remedies. The point cannot be stressed too often. Tragedy speaks not of secular dilemmas which may be resolved by rational innovation, but of the unalterable bias toward inhumanity and destruction in the drift of the world.

For your response in this part of the exam you will need to draw on at least ONE supplementary reading from vUWS in the Drama Module Folder to support your thesis. Independent scholarly research is encouraged, but not web searches. All secondary knowledge (including lecture notes) must be accurately acknowledged in your essay.

Part 2: Overview of Unit
Complete the task in no less than 750 and no more than 850 words.

This Part of the exam tests the insight with which you have grasped the larger themes and problems of literary studies introduced over the course of the unit as a whole. Choose only ONE question to answer out of the three offered here.
Questions:
1. ‘When used effectively, literary genres provide formal constraints that are creatively enabling.’ Discuss with reference to two or more works from the readings from at least two of the three modules.

2. ‘Texts are worldly, to some degree they are events, and, even when they appear to deny it, they are nevertheless a part of the social world, human life, and of course the historical moments in which they are located and interpreted.’ (Edward Said) Discuss the relationship between literature and the world with reference to two or more works from the readings from at least two of the three modules.

3. ‘Literature is an intermingling ceaselessly begun and ceaselessly undone, and it is the only kind of communication capable of giving me that which cannot be communicated, capable of giving me the taste of another life.’ (Simone de Beauvoir) How might literature give readers the taste of another life? Discuss with reference to two or more works from the readings from at least two of the three modules.
For your response in this Part of the exam you cannot use the same work as that discussed in Part One. You must draw only on readings studied from this semester’s Unit Reader. Eleanor Dark’s novel is not up for discussion.

* Please include a reference list at the end of both essays

THE END

The Purloined Letter
Poe, Edgar Allan
Published: 1844
Categorie(s): Fiction, Short Stories
Source: http://en.wikisource.org
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About Poe:
Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short story writer,
playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the
American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the
macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners
of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction
and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the
emergent science fiction genre.Poe died at the age of 40. The
cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to
alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be
mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis,
heart disease, brain congestion and other agents.
Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Poe:
• The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
• The Raven (1845)
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
• The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)
• Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)
• The Cask of Amontillado (1846)
• The Black Cat (1842)
• The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
• A Descent into the Maelström (1841)
Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks
http://www.feedbooks.com
Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial
purposes.
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Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.
Seneca
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of
18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a
meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in
his little back library, or book closet, au troisième, No. 33, Rue
Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had
maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer,
might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere
of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally
discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation
between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean
the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the
murder of Marie Rogêt. I looked upon it, therefore, as
something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment
was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur
G-, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as
much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man,
and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting
in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a
lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G.’s saying
that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of
my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a
great deal of trouble.
“If it is any point requiring reflection,” observed Dupin, as he
forebore to enkindle the wick, “we shall examine it to better
purpose in the dark.”
“That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who
had a fashion of calling every thing “odd” that was beyond his
comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of
“oddities.”
“Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe,
and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
“And what is the difficulty now?” I asked. “Nothing more in
the assassination way, I hope?”
“Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is
very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it
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sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like
to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.”
“Simple and odd,” said Dupin.
“Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have
all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple,
and yet baffles us altogether.”
“Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you
at fault,” said my friend.
“What nonsense you do talk!” replied the Prefect, laughing
heartily.
“Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain,” said Dupin.
“Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?”
“A little too self evident.”
“Ha! ha! ha – ha! ha! ha! – ho! ho! ho!” roared our visitor, profoundly
amused, “oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!”
“And what, after all, is the matter on hand?” I asked.
“Why, I will tell you,” replied the Prefect, as he gave a long,
steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair.
“I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution
you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy,
and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold,
were it known that I confided it to any one.”
“Proceed,” said I.
“Or not,” said Dupin.
“Well, then; I have received personal information, from a
very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance,
has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual
who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was
seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his
possession.”
“How is this known?” asked Dupin.
“It is clearly inferred,” replied the Prefect, “from the nature
of the document, and from the non appearance of certain results
which would at once arise from its passing out of the
robber’s possession; that is to say, from his employing it as he
must design in the end to employ it.”
“Be a little more explicit,” I said.
“Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its
holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power
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is immensely valuable.” The Prefect was fond of the cant of
diplomacy.
“Still I do not quite understand,” said Dupin.
“No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person,
who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a
personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder
of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage
whose honor and peace are so jeopardized.”
“But this ascendancy,” I interposed, “would depend upon the
robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber.
Who would dare – ”
“The thief,” said G., “is the Minister D-, who dares all things,
those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method
of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document
in question – a letter, to be frank – had been received by the
personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir. During its
perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the
other exalted personage from whom especially it was her wish
to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a
drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table.
The address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus
unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters
the Minister D-. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper,
recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion
of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After
some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary
manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in
question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in
close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses, for some
fifteen minutes, upon the public affairs. At length, in taking
leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had
no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call
attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who
stood at her elbow. The minister decamped; leaving his own
letter – one of no importance – upon the table.”
“Here, then,” said Dupin to me, “you have precisely what you
demand to make the ascendancy complete – the robber’s knowledge
of the loser’s knowledge of the robber.”
“Yes,” replied the Prefect; “and the power thus attained has,
for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a
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very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly
convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her
letter. But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven
to despair, she has committed the matter to me.”
“Than whom,” said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of
smoke, “no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired,
or even imagined.”
“You flatter me,” replied the Prefect; “but it is possible that
some such opinion may have been entertained.”
“It is clear,” said I, “as you observe, that the letter is still in
possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not
any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With
the employment the power departs.”
“True,” said G.; “and upon this conviction I proceeded. My
first care was to make thorough search of the minister’s hotel;
and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of
searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have
been warned of the danger which would result from giving him
reason to suspect our design.”
“But,” said I, “you are quite au fait in these investigations.
The Parisian police have done this thing often before.”
“O yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of
the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently
absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous.
They sleep at a distance from their master’s apartment,
and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I
have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or
cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed, during
the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally,
in ransacking the D- Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to
mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not
abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the
thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated
every nook and corner of the premises in which it is
possible that the paper can be concealed.”
“But is it not possible,” I suggested, “that although the letter
may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he
may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?”
“This is barely possible,” said Dupin. “The present peculiar
condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in
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which D- is known to be involved, would render the instant
availability of the document – its susceptibility of being produced
at a moment’s notice – a point of nearly equal importance
with its possession.”
“Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.
“That is to say, of being destroyed,” said Dupin.
“True,” I observed; “the paper is clearly then upon the
premises. As for its being upon the person of the minister, we
may consider that as out of the question.”
“Entirely,” said the Prefect. “He has been twice waylaid, as if
by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own
inspection.”
“You might have spared yourself this trouble,” said Dupin.
“D-, I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have
anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course.”
“Not altogether a fool,” said G., “but then he’s a poet, which I
take to be only one remove from a fool.”
“True,” said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, “although I have been guilty of certain doggerel
myself.”
“Suppose you detail,” said I, “the particulars of your search.”
“Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every
where. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the
entire building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole
week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment.
We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you
know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing as a
secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a
‘secret’ drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The
thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk – of space –
to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate
rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After the
cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the
fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables
we removed the tops.”
“Why so?”
“Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged
piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal
an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited
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within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops
of bedposts are employed in the same way.”
“But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?” I asked.
“By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient
wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we
were obliged to proceed without noise.”
“But you could not have removed – you could not have taken
to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have been
possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter
may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in
shape or bulk from a large knitting needle, and in this form it
might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did
not take to pieces all the chairs?”
“Certainly not; but we did better – we examined the rungs of
every chair in the hotel, and, indeed the jointings of every description
of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope.
Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we
should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of
gimlet dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an
apple. Any disorder in the gluing – any unusual gaping in the
joints – would have sufficed to insure detection.”
“I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards
and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed clothes,
as well as the curtains and carpets.”
“That of course; and when we had absolutely completed
every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined
the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments,
which we numbered, so that none might be missed;
then we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the
premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining, with
the microscope, as before.”
“The two houses adjoining!” I exclaimed; “you must have had
a great deal of trouble.”
“We had; but the reward offered is prodigious!”
“You include the grounds about the houses?”
“All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively
little trouble. We examined the moss between the
bricks, and found it undisturbed.”
“You looked among D-‘s papers, of course, and into the books
of the library?”
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“Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only
opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each
volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according
to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured
the thickness of every book cover, with the most accurate admeasurement,
and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of
the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently
meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the
fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six
volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully
probed, longitudinally, with the needles.”
“You explored the floors beneath the carpets?”
“Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the
boards with the microscope.”
“And the paper on the walls?”
“Yes.”
“You looked into the cellars?”
“We did.”
“Then,” I said, “you have been making a miscalculation, and
the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.”
“I fear you are right there,” said the Prefect. “And now,
Dupin, what would you advise me to do?”
“To make a thorough re search of the premises.”
“That is absolutely needless,” replied G-. “I am not more sure
that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel.”
“I have no better advice to give you,” said Dupin. “You have,
of course, an accurate description of the letter?”
“Oh yes!” – And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum
book proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal,
and especially of the external appearance of the missing document.
Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he
took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I
had ever known the good gentleman before. In about a month
afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very
nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered into
some ordinary conversation. At length I said, –
“Well, but G-, what of the purloined letter? I presume you
have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as
overreaching the Minister?”
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“Confound him, say I – yes; I made the re examination,
however, as Dupin suggested – but it was all labor lost, as I
knew it would be.”
“How much was the reward offered, did you say?” asked
Dupin.
“Why, a very great deal – a very liberal reward – I don’t like to
say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I
wouldn’t mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand
francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is,
it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the
reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I
could do no more than I have done.”
“Why, yes,” said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, “I really – think, G-, you have not exerted yourself
– to the utmost in this matter. You might – do a little more, I
think, eh?”
“How? – in what way?’
“Why – puff, puff – you might – puff, puff – employ counsel in
the matter, eh? – puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story
they tell of Abernethy?”
“No; hang Abernethy!”
“To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a
certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging upon this
Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose,
an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated
his case to the physician, as that of an imaginary individual.
” ‘We will suppose,’ said the miser, ‘that his symptoms are
such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him
to take?’
” ‘Take!’ said Abernethy, ‘why, take advice, to be sure.’ ”
“But,” said the Prefect, a little discomposed, “I am perfectly
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter.”
“In that case,” replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing
a check book, “you may as well fill me up a check for the
amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you
the letter.”
I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder
stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless,
looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth,
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and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently
recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen, and
after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and
signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across
the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited
it in his pocket book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took
thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary
grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling
hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling
and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously
from the room and from the house, without having uttered a
syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.
When he had gone, my friend entered into some
explanations.
“The Parisian police,” he said, “are exceedingly able in their
way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly
versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand.
Thus, when G- detailed to us his made of searching the
premises at the Hotel D-, I felt entire confidence in his having
made a satisfactory investigation – so far as his labors
extended.”
“So far as his labors extended?” said I.
“Yes,” said Dupin. “The measures adopted were not only the
best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had
the letter been deposited within the range of their search,
these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.”
I merely laughed – but he seemed quite serious in all that he
said.
“The measures, then,” he continued, ” were good in their
kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable
to the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious
resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed,
to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs
by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and
many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one
about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the
game of ‘even and odd’ attracted universal admiration. This
game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in
his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another
whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the
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guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude
won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some
principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement
of the astuteness of his opponents. For example,
an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed
hand, asks, ‘are they even or odd?’ Our schoolboy replies, ‘odd,’
and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says
to himself, ‘the simpleton had them even upon the first trial,
and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have
them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd;’ – he
guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above
the first, he would have reasoned thus: ‘This fellow finds that
in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will
propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a simple variation
from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second
thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally
he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore
guess even;’ – he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode
of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed ‘lucky,’
– what, in its last analysis, is it?”
“It is merely,” I said, “an identification of the reasoner’s intellect
with that of his opponent.”
“It is,” said Dupin; “and, upon inquiring, of the boy by what
means he effected the thorough identification in which his success
consisted, I received answer as follows: ‘When I wish to
find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked
is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion
the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance
with the expression of his, and then wait to see what
thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to
match or correspond with the expression.’ This response of the
schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity
which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to
Machiavelli, and to Campanella.”
“And the identification,” I said, “of the reasoner’s intellect
with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright,
upon the accuracy with which the opponent’s intellect is
admeasured.”
“For its practical value it depends upon this,” replied Dupin;
“and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by
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default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill admeasurement,
or rather through non admeasurement, of the intellect
with which they are engaged. They consider only their own
ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert
only to the modes in which they would have hidden it.
They are right in this much – that their own ingenuity is a faithful
representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of
the individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the
felon foils them, of course. This always happens when it is
above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have
no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when
urged by some unusual emergency – by some extraordinary reward
– they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice,
without touching their principles. What, for example, in this
case of D-, has been done to vary the principle of action? What
is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing
with the microscope and dividing the surface of the building into
registered square inches – what is it all but an exaggeration
of the application of the one principle or set of principles of
search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding
human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of
his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it
for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter, – not exactly
in a gimlet hole bored in a chair leg – but, at least, in
someout of the way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor
of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a
gimlet hole bored in a chair leg? And do you not see also, that
such recherchés nooks for concealment are adapted only for
ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects;
for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article
concealed – a disposal of it in this recherché manner, – is,
in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus
its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether
upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the
seekers; and where the case is of importance – or, what
amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward
is of magnitude, – the qualities in question have never
been known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in
suggesting that, had the purloined letter been hidden any
where within the limits of the Prefect’s examination – in other
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words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended
within the principles of the Prefect – its discovery would
have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary,
however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote
source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is
a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are
poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non
distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools.”
“But is this really the poet?” I asked. “There are two brothers,
I know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The
Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus.
He is a mathematician, and no poet.”
“You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and
mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician,
he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at
the mercy of the Prefect.”
“You surprise me,” I said, “by these opinions, which have
been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean
to set at naught the well digested idea of centuries. The mathematical
reason has long been regarded as the reason par
excellence.”
” ‘Il y a à parièr,’ ” replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, ”
‘que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue est une sottise,
car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.’ The mathematicians,
I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the
popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less
an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a
better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term ‘analysis’
into application to algebra. The French are the originators
of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance
– if words derive any value from applicability – then ‘analysis’
conveys ‘algebra’ about as much as, in Latin, ‘ambitus’
implies ‘ambition,’ ‘religio’ ‘religion,’ or ‘homines honesti,’ a set
of honorablemen.”
“You have a quarrel on hand, I see,” said I, “with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”
“I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason
which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly
logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by
mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form
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and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied
to observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in
supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra,
are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious
that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been
received. Mathematical axioms are notaxioms of general truth.
What is true of relation – of form and quantity – is often grossly
false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it
is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to
the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration
of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value,
have not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of
their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical
truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But
the mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through
habit, as if they were of an absolutely general applicability – as
the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very
learned ‘Mythology,’ mentions an analogous source of error,
when he says that ‘although the Pagan fables are not believed,
yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from
them as existing realities.’ With the algebraists, however, who
are Pagans themselves, the ‘Pagan fables’ are believed, and the
inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as
through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never
yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted
out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it
as a point of his faith that x2+px was absolutely and unconditionally
equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of
experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur
where x2+px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made
him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as
speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to
knock you down.
“I mean to say,” continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at
his last observations, “that if the Minister had been no more
than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no
necessity of giving me this check. I know him, however, as both
mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his
capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was
surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold
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intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be aware
of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have
failed to anticipate – and events have proved that he did not fail
to anticipate – the waylayings to which he was subjected. He
must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his
premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which
were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded
only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search
to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the
conviction to which G, in fact, did finally arrive – the conviction
that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the
whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing
to you just now, concerning the invariable principle of policial
action in searches for articles concealed – I felt that this whole
train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of
the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the
ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so
weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of
his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the
eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of
the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter
of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a
matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately
the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview,
that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on
account of its being so very self evident.”
“Yes,” said I, “I remember his merriment well. I really
thought he would have fallen into convulsions.”
“The material world,” continued Dupin, “abounds with very
strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth
has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or
simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to
embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiæ, for example,
seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is
not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty
set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent
momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than
it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while
more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements
than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily
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moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first
few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which
of the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most attractive
of attention?”
“I have never given the matter a thought,” I said.
“There is a game of puzzles,” he resumed, “which is played
upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a given
word – the name of town, river, state or empire – any word, in
short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A
novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents
by giving them the most minutely lettered names; but the adept
selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one
end of the chart to the other. These, like the over largely
lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by
dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight
is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by
which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations
which are too obtrusively and too palpably self evident.
But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the
understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it probable,
or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter immediately
beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
“But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating
ingenuity of D ; upon the fact that the document
must always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good
purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect,
that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary’s
ordinary search – the more satisfied I became that, to conceal
this letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and
sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.
“Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at
the Ministerial hotel. I found D- at home, yawning, lounging,
and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity
of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human
being now alive – but that is only when nobody sees him.
“To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and
lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which
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I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment,
while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host.
“I paid especial attention to a large writing table near which
he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters
and other papers, with one or two musical instruments
and a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate
scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion.
“At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon
a trumpery fillagree card rack of pasteboard, that hung
dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath
the middle of the mantel piece. In this rack, which had
three or four compartments, were five or six visiting cards and
a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It
was torn nearly in two, across the middle – as if a design, in the
first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been
altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal,
bearing the D- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed,
in a diminutive female hand, to D-, the minister, himself. It was
thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into
one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
“No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to
be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect
had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large
and black, with the D- cipher; there it was small and red, with
the ducal arms of the S- family. Here, the address, to the Minister,
diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a
certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; the
size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the
radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt;
the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with
the true methodical habits of D-, and so suggestive of a design
to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
document; these things, together with the hyper obtrusive situation
of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and
thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had
previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative
of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to
suspect.
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“I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained
a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a
topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite
him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this
examination, I committed to memory its external appearance
and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, upon a
discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have
entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed
them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented
the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper,
having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges
which had formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient.
It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a
glove, inside out, re directed, and re sealed. I bade the Minister
good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a
gold snuff box upon the table.
“The next morning I called for the snuff box, when we resumed,
quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day.
While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol,
was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and
was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings
of a terrified mob. D- rushed to a casement, threw it open,
and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card rack
took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac
simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared
at my lodgings – imitating the D- cipher, very readily, by
means of a seal formed of bread.
“The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the
frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among
a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have
been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as
a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D- came from the
window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing
the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The
pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay.”
“But what purpose had you,” I asked, “in replacing the letter
by a fac simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit,
to have seized it openly, and departed?”
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“D-,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve.
His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests.
Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never
have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of
Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object
apart from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions.
In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned.
For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his
power. She has now him in hers – since, being unaware that the
letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions
as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about
the facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as
Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to
come down. In the present instance I have no sympathy – at
least no pity – for him who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum,
an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however,
that I should like very well to know the precise character of his
thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms ‘a
certain personage’ he is reduced to opening the letter which I
left for him in the card rack.”
“How? did you put any thing particular in it?”
“Why – it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank – that would have been insulting. D-, at Vienna once, did
me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good humoredly, that I
should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity
in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I
thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted
with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank
sheet the words –
Un dessein si funeste,
S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crebillon’s ‘Atrée.’”
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