Was it Heaven? Or Hell?
By courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of
a singular book eight or ten years ago. It is
likely that mine is now the only copy in existence.
Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:
“The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant.
By G. Ragsdale McClintock, [1] author of ‘An
Address,’ etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill,
South Carolina, and member of the Yale Law School.
New Haven: published by T. H. Pease, 83 Chapel
Street, 1845.”
No one can take up this book and lay it down again
unread. Whoever reads one line of it is caught,
is chained; he has become the contented slave of its
fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and
devour, and will not let it go out of his hand till
it is finished to the last line, though the house
be on fire over his head. And after a first
reading he will not throw it aside, but will keep
it by him, with his Shakespeare and his Homer, and
will take it up many and many a time, when the world
is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway
cheered and refreshed. Yet this work has been
allowed to lie wholly neglected, unmentioned, and
apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.
The reader must not imagine that he is to find in
it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity
of construction, excellence of form, purity of style,
perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness
of statement, humanly possible situations, humanly
possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence
of events —or philosophy, or logic, or
sense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of
the book lies in the total and miraculous absence
from it of all these qualities—a charm
which is completed and perfected by the evident fact
that the author, whose naive innocence easily and surely
wins our regard, and almost our worship, does not know
that they are absent, does not even suspect that they
are absent. When read by the light of these
helps to an understanding of the situation, the book
is delicious—profoundly and satisfyingly
delicious.
I call it a book because the author calls it a book,
I call it a work because he calls it a work; but,
in truth, it is merely a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty-one
pages. It was written for fame and money, as
the author very frankly—yes, and very hopefully,
too, poor fellow —says in his preface.
The money never came—no penny of it ever
came; and how long, how pathetically long, the fame
has been deferred —forty-seven years!
He was young then, it would have been so much to
him then; but will he care for it now?
