His Wife's Deceased Sister

It is now five years since an event occurred which so colored my

life, or rather so changed some of its original colors, that I have

thought it well to write an account of it, deeming that its lessons

may be of advantage to persons whose situations in life are similar

to my own.



When I was quite a young man I adopted literature as a profession;

and having passed through the necessary preparatory grades, I found

myself, after a good many years of hard and often unremunerative

work, in possession of what might be called a fair literary

practice. My articles, grave, gay, practical, or fanciful, had come

to be considered with a favor by the editors of the various

periodicals for which I wrote, on which I found in time I could rely

with a very comfortable certainty. My productions created no

enthusiasm in the reading public; they gave me no great reputation

or very valuable pecuniary return; but they were always accepted,

and my receipts from them, at the time to which I have referred,

were as regular and reliable as a salary, and quite sufficient to

give me more than a comfortable support.



It was at this time I married. I had been engaged for more than a

year, but had not been willing to assume the support of a wife until

I felt that my pecuniary position was so assured that I could do so

with full satisfaction to my own conscience. There was now no doubt

in regard to this position, either in my mind or in that of my wife.

I worked with great steadiness and regularity; I knew exactly where

to place the productions of my pen, and could calculate, with a fair

degree of accuracy, the sums I should receive for them. We were by

no means rich; but we had enough, and were thoroughly satisfied and

content.



Those of my readers who are married will have no difficulty in

remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their wedded

life. It is then that the flowers of this world bloom brightest;

that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are the scarcest;

that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air is the most

balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor; that the warmth

and radiance of early matrimonial felicity so rarefies the

intellectual atmosphere that the soul mounts higher, and enjoys a

wider prospect, than ever before.



These experiences were mine. The plain claret of my mind was changed

to sparkling champagne, and at the very height of its effervescence

I wrote a story. The happy thought that then struck me for a tale

was of a very peculiar character; and it interested me so much that

I went to work at it with great delight and enthusiasm, and finished

it in a comparatively short time. The title of the story was "His

Wife's Deceased Sister"; and when I read it to Hypatia she was

delighted with it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that

her uncontrollable emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes,

which prevented my seeing the words I had written. When the reading

was ended, and my wife had dried her eyes, she turned to me and

said, "This story will make your fortune. There has been nothing so

pathetic since Lamartine's 'History of a Servant-girl.'"



As soon as possible the next day I sent my story to the editor of

the periodical for which I wrote most frequently, and in which my

best productions generally appeared. In a few days I had a letter

from the editor, in which he praised my story as he had never before

praised anything from my pen. It had interested and charmed, he

said, not only himself, but all his associates in the office. Even

old Gibson, who never cared to read anything until it was in proof,

and who never praised anything which had not a joke in it, was

induced by the example of the others to read this manuscript, and

shed, as he asserted, the first tears that had come from his eyes

since his final paternal castigation some forty years before. The

story would appear, the editor assured me, as soon as he could

possibly find room for it.



If anything could make our skies more genial, our flowers brighter,

and the flavor of our fruit and cigars more delicious, it was a

letter like this. And when, in a very short time, the story was

published, we found that the reading public was inclined to receive

it with as much sympathetic interest and favor as had been shown to

it by the editors. My personal friends soon began to express

enthusiastic opinions upon it. It was highly praised in many of the

leading newspapers; and, altogether, it was a great literary

success. I am not inclined to be vain of my writings, and, in

general, my wife tells me, think too little of them; but I did feel

a good deal of pride and satisfaction in the success of "His Wife's

Deceased Sister." If it did not make my fortune, as my wife asserted

that it would, it certainly would help me very much in my literary

career.



In less than a month from the writing of this story, something very

unusual and unexpected happened to me. A manuscript was returned by

the editor of the periodical in which "His Wife's Deceased Sister"

had appeared. "It is a good story," he wrote, "but not equal to what

you have just done. You have made a great hit; and it would not do

to interfere with the reputation you have gained by publishing

anything inferior to 'His Wife's Deceased Sister,' which has had

such a deserved success."



I was so unaccustomed to having my work thrown back on my hands that

I think I must have turned a little pale when I read the letter. I

said nothing of the matter to my wife, for it would be foolish to

drop such grains of sand as this into the smoothly oiled machinery

of our domestic felicity; but I immediately sent the story to

another editor. I am not able to express the astonishment I felt

when, in the course of a week, it was sent back to me. The tone of

the note accompanying it indicated a somewhat injured feeling on the

part of the editor. "I am reluctant," he said, "to decline a

manuscript from you; but you know very well that if you sent me

anything like 'His Wife's Deceased Sister' it would be most promptly

accepted."



I now felt obliged to speak of the affair to my wife, who was quite

as much surprised, though, perhaps, not quite as much shocked, as I

had been.



"Let us read the story again," she said, "and see what is the matter

with it." When we had finished its perusal, Hypatia remarked, "It is

quite as good as many of the stories you have had printed, and I

think it very interesting; although, of course, it is not equal to

'His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"



"Of course not," said I; "that was an inspiration that I cannot

expect every day. But there must be something wrong about this last

story which we do not perceive. Perhaps my recent success may have

made me a little careless in writing it."



"I don't believe that," said Hypatia.



"At any rate," I continued, "I will lay it aside, and will go to

work on a new one."



In due course of time I had another manuscript finished, and I sent

it to my favorite periodical. It was retained some weeks, and then

came back to me. "It will never do," the editor wrote, quite warmly,

"for you to go backward. The demand for the number containing 'His

Wife's Deceased Sister' still continues, and we do not intend to let

you disappoint that great body of readers who would be so eager to

see another number containing one of your stories."



I sent this manuscript to four other periodicals, and from each of

them was it returned with remarks to the effect that, although it

was not a bad story in itself, it was not what they would expect

from the author of "His Wife's Deceased Sister."



The editor of a Western magazine wrote to me for a story to be

published in a special number which he would issue for the holidays.

I wrote him one of the character and length he asked for, and sent

it to him. By return mail it came back to me. "I had hoped," the

editor wrote, "when I asked for a story from your pen, to receive

something like 'His Wife's Deceased Sister,' and I must own that I

am very much disappointed."



I was so filled with anger when I read this note that I openly

objurgated "His Wife's Deceased Sister." "You must excuse me," I

said to my astonished wife, "for expressing myself thus in your

presence; but that confounded story will be the ruin of me yet.

Until it is forgotten nobody will ever take anything I write."



"And you cannot expect it ever to be forgotten," said Hypatia, with

tears in her eyes.



It is needless for me to detail my literary efforts in the course of

the next few months. The ideas of the editors with whom my principal

business had been done, in regard to my literary ability, had been

so raised by my unfortunate story of "His Wife's Deceased Sister"

that I found it was of no use to send them anything of lesser merit.

And as to the other journals which I tried, they evidently

considered it an insult for me to send them matter inferior to that

by which my reputation had lately risen. The fact was that my

successful story had ruined me. My income was at end, and want

actually stared me in the face; and I must admit that I did not like

the expression of its countenance. It was of no use for me to try to

write another story like "His Wife's Deceased Sister." I could not

get married every time I began a new manuscript, and it was the

exaltation of mind caused by my wedded felicity which produced that

story.



"It's perfectly dreadful!" said my wife. "If I had had a sister, and

she had died, I would have thought it was my fault."



"It could not be your fault," I answered, "and I do not think it was

mine. I had no intention of deceiving anybody into the belief that I

could do that sort of thing every time, and it ought not to be

expected of me. Suppose Raphael's patrons had tried to keep him

screwed up to the pitch of the Sistine Madonna, and had refused to

buy anything which was not as good as that. In that case I think he

would have occupied a much earlier and narrower grave than that on

which Mr. Morris Moore hangs his funeral decorations."



"But, my dear," said Hypatia, who was posted on such subjects, "the

Sistine Madonna was one of his latest paintings."



"Very true," said I; "but if he had married, as I did, he would have

painted it earlier."



I was walking homeward one afternoon about this time, when I met

Barbel--a man I had known well in my early literary career. He was

now about fifty years of age, but looked older. His hair and beard

were quite gray; and his clothes, which were of the same general

hue, gave me the idea that they, like his hair, had originally been

black. Age is very hard on a man's external appointments. Barbel had

an air of having been to let for a long time, and quite out of

repair. But there was a kindly gleam in his eye, and he welcomed me

cordially.



"Why, what is the matter, old fellow?" said he. "I never saw you

look so woebegone."



I had no reason to conceal anything from Barbel. In my younger days

he had been of great use to me, and he had a right to know the state

of my affairs. I laid the whole case plainly before him.



"Look here," he said, when I had finished, "come with me to my room:

I have something I would like to say to you there."



I followed Barbel to his room. It was at the top of a very dirty and

well-worn house which stood in a narrow and lumpy street, into which

few vehicles ever penetrated, except the ash and garbage carts, and

the rickety wagons of the venders of stale vegetables.



"This is not exactly a fashionable promenade," said Barbel, as we

approached the house; "but in some respects it reminds me of the

streets in Italian towns, where the palaces lean over toward each

other in such a friendly way."



Barbel's room was, to my mind, rather more doleful than the street.

It was dark, it was dusty, and cobwebs hung from every corner. The

few chairs upon the floor and the books upon a greasy table seemed

to be afflicted with some dorsal epidemic, for their backs were

either gone or broken. A little bedstead in the corner was covered

with a spread made of New York _Heralds_, with their edges pasted

together.



"There is nothing better," said Barbel, noticing my glance toward

this novel counterpane, "for a bed-covering than newspapers: they

keep you as warm as a blanket, and are much lighter. I used to use

_Tribunes_, but they rattled too much."



The only part of the room which was well lighted was at one end near

the solitary window. Here, upon a table with a spliced leg, stood a

little grindstone.



"At the other end of the room," said Barbel, "is my cook-stove,

which you can't see unless I light the candle in the bottle which

stands by it; but if you don't care particularly to examine it, I

won't go to the expense of lighting up. You might pick up a good

many odd pieces of bric-a-brac around here, if you chose to strike a

match and investigate; but I would not advise you to do so. It would

pay better to throw the things out of the window than to carry them

downstairs. The particular piece of indoor decoration to which I

wish to call your attention is this." And he led me to a little

wooden frame which hung against the wall near the window. Behind a

dusty piece of glass it held what appeared to be a leaf from a small

magazine or journal. "There," said he, "you see a page from the

_Grasshopper_, a humorous paper which flourished in this city some

half-dozen years ago. I used to write regularly for that paper, as

you may remember."



"Oh yes, indeed!" I exclaimed. "And I shall never forget your

'Conundrum of the Anvil' which appeared in it. How often have I

laughed at that most wonderful conceit, and how often have I put it

to my friends!"



Barbel gazed at me silently for a moment, and then he pointed to the

frame. "That printed page," he said, solemnly, "contains the

'Conundrum of the Anvil.' I hang it there so that I can see it while

I work. That conundrum ruined me. It was the last thing I wrote for

the _Grasshopper_. How I ever came to imagine it I cannot tell. It

is one of those things which occur to a man but once in a lifetime.

After the wild shout of delight with which the public greeted that

conundrum, my subsequent efforts met with hoots of derision. The

_Grasshopper_ turned its hind legs upon me. I sank from bad to

worse--much worse--until at last I found myself reduced to my

present occupation, which is that of grinding points to pins. By

this I procure my bread, coffee, and tobacco, and sometimes potatoes

and meat. One day while I was hard at work an organ-grinder came

into the street below. He played the serenade from "Trovatore"; and

the familiar notes brought back visions of old days and old

delights, when the successful writer wore good clothes and sat at

operas, when he looked into sweet eyes and talked of Italian airs,

when his future appeared all a succession of bright scenery and

joyous acts, without any provision for a drop-curtain. And as my ear

listened, and my mind wandered in this happy retrospect, my every

faculty seemed exalted, and, without any thought upon the matter, I

ground points upon my pins so fine, so regular and smooth, that they

would have pierced with ease the leather of a boot, or slipped

among, without abrasion, the finest threads of rare old lace. When

the organ stopped, and I fell back into my real world of cobwebs and

mustiness, I gazed upon the pins I had just ground, and, without a

moment's hesitation, I threw them into the street, and reported the

lot as spoiled. This cost me a little money, but it saved me my

livelihood."



After a few moments of silence, Barbel resumed:



"I have no more to say to you, my young friend. All I want you to do

is to look upon that framed conundrum, then upon this grindstone,

and then to go home and reflect. As for me, I have a gross of pins

to grind before the sun goes down."



I cannot say that my depression of mind was at all relieved by what

I had seen and heard. I had lost sight of Barbel for some years, and

I had supposed him still floating on the sun-sparkling stream of

prosperity where I had last seen him. It was a great shock to me to

find him in such a condition of poverty and squalor, and to see a

man who had originated the "Conundrum of the Anvil" reduced to the

soul-depressing occupation of grinding pin-points. As I walked and

thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose

before my mind. The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.



When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel.

She listened with a sad and eager interest.



"I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that

we shall have to buy two little grindstones. You know I could help

you at that sort of thing."



For a long time we sat together and talked, and devised many plans

for the future. I did not think it necessary yet for me to look out

for a pin-contract; but I must find some way of making money, or we

should starve to death. Of course the first thing that suggested

itself was the possibility of finding some other business; but,

apart from the difficulty of immediately obtaining remunerative work

in occupations to which I had not been trained, I felt a great and

natural reluctance to give up a profession for which I had carefully

prepared myself, and which I had adopted as my life-work. It would

be very hard for me to lay down my pen forever, and to close the top

of my inkstand upon all the bright and happy fancies which I had

seen mirrored in its tranquil pool. We talked and pondered the rest

of that day and a good deal of the night, but we came to no

conclusion as to what it would be best for us to do.



The next day I determined to go and call upon the editor of the

journal for which, in happier days, before the blight of "His Wife's

Deceased Sister" rested upon me, I used most frequently to write,

and, having frankly explained my condition to him, to ask his

advice. The editor was a good man, and had always been my friend. He

listened with great attention to what I told him, and evidently

sympathized with me in my trouble.



"As we have written to you," he said, "the only reason why we did

not accept the manuscripts you sent us was that they would have

disappointed the high hopes that the public had formed in regard to

you. We have had letter after letter asking when we were going to

publish another story like 'His Wife's Deceased Sister.' We felt,

and we still feel, that it would be wrong to allow you to destroy

the fair fabric which yourself has raised. But," he added, with a

kind smile, "I see very plainly that your well-deserved reputation

will be of little advantage to you if you should starve at the

moment that its genial beams are, so to speak, lighting you up."



"Its beams are not genial," I answered. "They have scorched and

withered me."



"How would you like," said the editor, after a short reflection, "to

allow us to publish the stories you have recently written under some

other name than your own? That would satisfy us and the public,

would put money in your pocket, and would not interfere with your

reputation."



Joyfully I seized that noble fellow by the hand, and instantly

accepted his proposition. "Of course," said I, "a reputation is a

very good thing; but no reputation can take the place of food,

clothes, and a house to live in; and I gladly agree to sink my

over-illumined name into oblivion, and to appear before the public

as a new and unknown writer."



"I hope that need not be for long," he said, "for I feel sure that

you will yet write stories as good as 'His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"



All the manuscripts I had on hand I now sent to my good friend the

editor, and in due and proper order they appeared in his journal

under the name of John Darmstadt, which I had selected as a

substitute for my own, permanently disabled. I made a similar

arrangement with other editors, and John Darmstadt received the

credit of everything that proceeded from my pen. Our circumstances

now became very comfortable, and occasionally we even allowed

ourselves to indulge in little dreams of prosperity.



Time passed on very pleasantly; one year, another, and then a little

son was born to us. It is often difficult, I believe, for thoughtful

persons to decide whether the beginning of their conjugal career, or

the earliest weeks in the life of their first-born, be the happiest

and proudest period of their existence. For myself I can only say

that the same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and

invention, which succeeded upon my wedding-day came upon me now. As

then, my ecstatic emotions crystallized themselves into a motive for

a story, and without delay I set myself to work upon it. My boy was

about six weeks old when the manuscript was finished; and one

evening, as we sat before a comfortable fire in our sitting-room,

with the curtains drawn, and the soft lamp lighted, and the baby

sleeping soundly in the adjoining chamber, I read the story to my

wife.



When I had finished, my wife arose and threw herself into my arms.

"I was never so proud of you," she said, her glad eyes sparkling,

"as I am at this moment. That is a wonderful story! It is--indeed I

am sure it is--just as good as 'His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"



As she spoke these words a sudden and chilling sensation crept over

us both. All her warmth and fervor, and the proud and happy glow

engendered within me by this praise and appreciation from one I

loved, vanished in an instant. We stepped apart, and gazed upon each

other with pallid faces. In the same moment the terrible truth had

flashed upon us both.



This story _was_ as good as "His Wife's Deceased Sister"!



We stood silent. The exceptional lot of Barbel's superpointed pins

seemed to pierce our very souls. A dreadful vision rose before me of

an impending fall and crash, in which our domestic happiness should

vanish, and our prospects for our boy be wrecked, just as we had

begun to build them up.



My wife approached me and took my hand in hers, which was as cold as

ice. "Be strong and firm," she said. "A great danger threatens us,

but you must brace yourself against it. Be strong and firm."



I pressed her hand, and we said no more that night.



The next day I took the manuscript I had just written, and carefully

infolded it in stout wrapping-paper. Then I went to a neighboring

grocery-store and bought a small, strong tin box, originally

intended for biscuit, with a cover that fitted tightly. In this I

placed my manuscript; and then I took the box to a tinsmith and had

the top fastened on with hard solder. When I went home I ascended

into the garret, and brought down to my study a ship's cash-box,

which had once belonged to one of my family who was a sea-captain.

This box was very heavy, and firmly bound with iron, and was secured

by two massive locks. Calling my wife, I told her of the contents of

the tin case, which I then placed in the box, and, having shut down

the heavy lid, I doubly locked it.



"This key," said I, putting it in my pocket, "I shall throw into the

river when I go out this afternoon."



My wife watched me eagerly, with a pallid and firm, set countenance,

but upon which I could see the faint glimmer of returning happiness.



"Wouldn't it be well," she said, "to secure it still further by

sealing-wax and pieces of tape?"



"No," said I. "I do not believe that any one will attempt to tamper

with our prosperity. And now, my dear," I continued, in an

impressive voice, "no one but you, and, in the course of time, our

son, shall know that this manuscript exists. When I am dead, those

who survive me may, if they see fit, cause this box to be split open

and the story published. The reputation it may give my name cannot

harm me then."