THE GREAT CARBUNCLE'

Sketches from Memory

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE GREAT CARBUNCLE', SKETCHES FROM MEMORY by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

(The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale is
founded, is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately wrought
up in prose. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, written since the
Revolution, remarks, that even then the existence of the Great
Carbuncle was not entirely discredited.)

AT nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the
Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves, after
a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come
thither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save one
youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for this
wondrous gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong
enough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude
hut of branches, and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had
drifted down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower
bank of which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their
number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural
sympathies, by the absorbing spell of the pursuit, as to acknowledge
no satisfaction at the sight of human faces, in the remote and solitary
region whither they had ascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay
between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above
their heads was that black verge where the hills throw off their shaggy
mantle of forest trees, and either robe themselves in clouds or tower
naked into the sky. The roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too
awful for endurance if only a solitary man had listened, while the
mountain stream talked with the wind.

The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and
welcomed one another to the hut, where each man was the host, and
all were the guests of the whole company. They spread their
individual supplies of food on the flat surface of a rock, and partook
of a general repast; at the close of which, a sentiment of good
fellowship was perceptible among the party, though repressed by the
idea, that the renewed search for the Great Carbuncle must make
them strangers again in the morning. Seven men and one young
woman, they warmed themselves together at the fire, which extended
its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. As they
observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the
assemblage, each man looking like a caricature of himself, in the
unsteady light that flickered over him, they came mutually to the
conclusion, that an odder society had never met, in city or wilderness,
on mountain or plain.

The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some sixty
years of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose fashion of
dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf, and the bear, had
long been his most intimate companions. He was one of those ill-
fated mortals, such as the Indians told of, whom, in their early youth,
the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness, and became the
passionate dream of their existence. All who visited that region knew
him as the Seeker and by no other name. As none could remember
when he first took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of
the Saco, that for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had
been condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time,
still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise- the same despair at eve.
Near this miserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage, wearing a
high-crowned hat, shaped somewhat like a crucible. He was from
beyond the sea, a Doctor Cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried
himself into a mummy by continually stooping over charcoal
furnaces, and inhaling unwholesome fumes during his researches in
chemistry and alchemy. It was told of him, whether truly or not, that,
at the commencement of his studies, he had drained his body of all its
richest blood, and wasted it, with other inestimable ingredients, in an
unsuccessful experiment -- and had never been a well man since.
Another of the adventurers was Master bod Pigsnort, a weighty
merchant and selector Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr.
Norton's church. His enemies had a ridiculous story that Master
Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer time,
every morning and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense
quantity of pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage
of Massachusetts. The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that
his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer
that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of
spectacles, which were supposed to deform and discolor the whole
face of nature, to this gentleman's perception. The fifth adventurer
likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as he appeared to
be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but woefully pined away, which
was no more than natural, if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary
diet was fog, morning mist, and a slice of the densest cloud within his
reach, sauced with moonshine, whenever he could get it. Certain it is,
that the poetry which flowed from him had a smack of all these
dainties. The sixth of the party was a young man of haughty mien,
and sat somewhat apart from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily
among his elders, while the fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his
dress and gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword.
This was the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend
much of his time in the burial vault of his dead progenitors,
rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and
vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides his
own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line of
ancestry.

Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side a
blooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve
was just melting into the rich glow of a young wife's affection. Her
name was Hannah, and her husband's Matthew; two homely names,
yet well enough adapted to the simple pair, who seemed strangely out
of place among the whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog
by the Great Carbuncle.

Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire, sat
this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single object,
that, of whatever else they began to speak, their closing words were
sure to be illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several related the
circumstances that brought them thither. One had listened to a
traveller's tale of this marvellous stone in his own distant country, and
had immediately been seized with such a thirst for beholding it as
could only, be quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago
as when the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it
blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years till
now that he took up the search. A third, being camped on a hunting
expedition full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke at
midnight, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so
that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the
innumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of
the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all
adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a
light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It was
observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other
in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely
hidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. As if to
allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditions
that a spirit kept watch about the gem, and bewildered those who
sought it either by removing it from peak to peak of the higher hills,
or by calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung.
But these tales were deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to
believe that the search had been baffled by want of sagacity or
perseverance in the adventurers, or such other causes as might
naturally obstruct the passage to any given point among the
intricacies of forest, valley, and mountain.

In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious spectacles
looked round upon the party, making each individual, in turn, the
object of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance.

'So, fellow-pilgrims,' said he, 'here we are, seven wise men, and one
fair damsel- who, doubtless, is as wise as any graybeard of the
company: here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise.
Methinks, now, it were not amiss that each of us declare what he
proposes to do with the Great Carbuncle, provided he have the good
hap to clutch it. What says our friend in the bear skin? How mean
you, good sir, to enjoy the prize which you have been seeking, the
Lord knows how long, among the Crystal Hills?'

'How enjoy it!' exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. 'I hope for no
enjoyment from it; that folly has passed long ago! I keep up the
search for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of my youth
has become a fate upon me in old age. The pursuit alone is my
strength- the energy of my soul- the warmth of my blood- and the pith
and marrow of my bones! Were I to turn my back upon it I should fall
down dead on the hither side of the Notch, which is the gateway of
this mountain region. Yet not to have my wasted lifetime back again
would I give up my hopes of the Great Carbuncle! Having found it, i
shall bear it to a certain cavern that I wot of, and there, grasping it in
my arms, lie down and die, and keep it buried with me forever.'

'O wretch, regardless of the interests of science!' cried Doctor
Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. 'Thou art not worthy to
behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem that
ever was concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the sole
purpose for which a wise man may desire the possession of the Great
Carbuncle.

Immediately on obtaining it -- for I have a presentiment, good people,
that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation -- I shall
return to Europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to its
first elements. A portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable
powder; other parts shall be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents
will act upon so admirable a composition; and the remainder I design
to melt in the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these
various methods I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow
the result of my labors upon the world in a folio volume.'

'Excellent!' quoth the man with the spectacles. 'Nor need you hesitate,
learned sir, on account of the necessary destruction of the gem; since
the perusal of your folio may teach every mother's son of us to
concoct a Great Carbuncle of his own.'

'But, verily,' said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, 'for mine own part I object
to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated to reduce the
marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye frankly, sirs, I have an
interest in keeping up the price. Here have I quitted my regular traffic,
leaving my warehouse in the care of my clerks, and putting my credit
to great hazard, and, furthermore, have put myself in peril of death or
captivity by the accursed heathen savages--and all this without daring
to ask the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for the Great
Carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the Evil One.
Now think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to my soul,
body, reputation, and estate, without a reasonable chance of profit?'

' Not I, pious Master Pigsnort,' said the man with the spectacles. 'I
never laid such a great folly to thy charge.'

'Truly, I hope not,' said the merchant. 'Now, as touching this Great
Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it; but
be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell, it will surely
outvalue the Great Mogul's best diamond, which he holds at an
incalculable sum. Wherefore, I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle
on shipboard, and voyage with it to England, France, Spain, Italy, or
into Heathendom, if Providence should send me thither, and, in a
word, dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of
the earth, that he may place it among his crown jewels. If any of ye
have a wiser plan, let him expound it.'

'That have I, thou sordid man!' exclaimed the poet. ' Dost thou desire
nothing brighter than gold that thou wouldst transmute all this
ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already? For
myself, hiding the jewel under my cloak, I shall hie me back to my
attic chamber, in one of the darksome alleys of London. There, night
and day, will I gaze upon it; my soul shall drink its radiance; it shall
be diffused throughout my intellectual powers, and gleam brightly in
every line of poesy that I indite. Thus, long ages after I am gone, the
splendor of the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name?

'Well said, Master Poet!' cried he of the spectacles. 'Hide it under thy
cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes, and make
thee look like a jack-o'-lantern!'

'To think!' ejaculated the Lord de Vere, rather to himself than his
companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his
intercourse- 'to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of
conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street! Have not I
resolved within myself that the whole earth contains no fitter
ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle? There shall it flame
for ages, making a noonday of midnight, glittering on the suits of
armor, the banners, and escutcheons, that hang around the wall, and
keeping bright the memory of heroes. Wherefore have all other
adventurers sought the prize in vain but that I might win it, and make
it a symbol of the glories of our lofty line? And never, on the diadem
of the White Mountains, did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so
honored as is reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres!'

'It is a noble thought,' said the Cynic, with an obsequious sneer. 'Yet,
might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare sepulchral
lamp, and would display the glories of your lordship's progenitors
more truly in the ancestral vault than in the castle hall.'

'Nay, forsooth,' observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand in
hand with his bride, 'the gentleman has bethought himself of a
profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are seeking it
for a like purpose.'

'How, fellow!' exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. 'What castle hall
hast thou to hang it in?'

'No castle,' replied Matthew, 'but as neat a cottage as any within sight
of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that Hannah and I, being
wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the Great
Carbuncle, because we shall need its light in the long winter
evenings; and it will be such a pretty thing to show the neighbors
when they visit us. It will shine through the house so that we may
pick up a pin in any corner, and will set all the windows aglowing as
if there were a great fire of pine knots in the chimney. And then how
pleasant, when we awake in the night, to be able to see one another's
faces!'

There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of
the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable
stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been
proud to adorn his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who
had sneered at all the company in turn, now twisted his visage into
such an expression of ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him,
rather peevishly, what he himself meant to do with the Great
Carbuncle.

'The Great Carbuncle!' answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn.
'Why, you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I have
come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every
peak of these mountains, and poke my head into every chasm, for the
sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit
less an ass than thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug!'

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish, and so
impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He
was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are
downward to the darkness, instead of heavenward, and who, could
they but distinguish the lights which God hath kindled for us, would
count the midnight gloom their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke,
several of the party were startled by a gleam of red splendor, that
showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains and the rock-
bestrewn bed of the turbulent river with an illumination unlike that of
their fire on the trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They
listened for the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that
the tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial-points of
heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the blazing
logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the Great Carbuncle.

The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party
by a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have hung, in
deep festoons, around the bridal-bower of Eve. The modest little wife
had wrought this piece of tapestry while the other guests were talking.
She and her husband fell asleep with hands tenderly clasped, and
awoke from visions of unearthly radiance to meet the more blessed
light of one another's eyes. They awoke at the same instant, and with
one happy smile beaming over their two faces, which grew brighter
with their consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no sooner
did she recollect where they were, than the bride peeped through the
interstices of the leafy curtain, and saw that the outer room of the hut
was deserted.

'Up, dear Matthew!' cried she, in haste. 'The strange folk are all gone!
Up, this very minute, or we shall loose the Great Carbuncle!'

In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the mighty
prize which had lured them thither, that they had slept peacefully all
night, and till the summits of the hills were glittering with sunshine;
while the other adventurers had tossed their limbs in feverish
wakefulness, or dreamed of climbing precipices, and set off to realize
their dreams with the earliest peep of dawn. But Matthew and
Hannah, after their calm rest, were as light as two young deer, and
merely stopped to say their prayers and wash themselves in a cold
pool of the Amonoosuck, and then to taste a morsel of food, ere they
turned their faces to the mountainside. It was a sweet emblem of
conjugal affection, as they toiled up the difficult ascent, gathering
strength from the mutual aid which they afforded. After several little
accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe, and the entanglement of
Hannah's hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of the forest,
and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. The innumerable
trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto shut in their
thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the region of wind and
cloud and naked rocks and desolate sunshine, that rose immeasurably
above them. They gazed back at the obscure wilderness which they
had traversed, and longed to be buried again in its depths rather than
trust themselves to so vast and visible a solitude.

'Shall we go on?' said Matthew, throwing his arm round Hannah's
waist, both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing her
close to it.

But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman's love of jewels,
and could not forego the hope of possessing the very brightest in the
world, in spite of the perils with which it must be won.

'Let us climb a little higher,' whispered she, yet tremulously, as she
turned her face upward to the lonely sky.

'Come, then,' said Matthew,mustering his manly courage and
drawing her along with him, for she became timid again the moment
that he grew bold.

And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle,
now treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven branches of dwarf
pines, which, by the growth of centuries, though mossy with age, had
barely reached three feet in altitude. Next, they came to masses and
fragments of naked rock heaped confusedly together, like a cairn
reared by giants in memory of a giant chief. In this bleak realm of
upper air nothing breathed, nothing grew; there was no life but what
was concentrated in their two hearts; they had climbed so high that
Nature herself seemed no longer to keep them company. She lingered
beneath them, within the verge of the forest trees, and sent a farewell
glance after her children as they strayed where her own green
footprints had never been. But soon they were to be hidden from her
eye. Densely and dark the mists began to gather below, casting black
spots of shadow on the vast landscape, and sailing heavily to one
centre, as if the loftiest mountain peak had summoned a council of its
kindred clouds. Finally, the vapors welded themselves, as it were, into
a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement over which the
wanderers might have trodden, but where they would vainly have
sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had lost. And the
lovers yearned to behold that green earth again, more intensely, alas!
than, beneath a clouded sky, they had ever desired a glimpse of
heaven. They even felt it a relief to their desolation when the mists,
creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely peak, and
thus annihilated, at least for them, the whole region of visible space.
But they drew closely together, with a fond and melancholy gaze,
dreading lest the universal cloud should snatch them from each other's
sight.

Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as
high, between earth and heaven, as they could find foothold, if
Hannah's strength had not begun to fail, and with that, her courage
also. Her breath grew short. She refused to burden her husband with
her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself
each time by a feebler effort. At last, she sank down on one of the
rocky steps of the acclivity.

'We are lost, dear Matthew,' said she, mournfully. 'We shall never
find our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might have
been in our cottage!'

'Dear heart! w we will yet be happy there,' answered Matthew. 'Look!
In this direction, the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist. By its aid, I
can direct our course to the passage of the Notch. Let us go back,
love, and dream no more of the Great Carbuncle!'

'The sun cannot be yonder[ said Hannah, with despondence. 'By this
time it must be noon. If there could ever be any sunshine here, it
would come from above our heads.'

'But look!' repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. 'It is
brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?'

Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was
breaking through the mist, and changing its dim hue to a dusky red,
which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were
interfused with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to roll away
from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after
another started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight, with
precisely the effect of a new creation, before the indistinctness of the
old chaos had been completely swallowed up. As the process went
on, they saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and found
themselves on the very border of a mountain lake, deep, bright, clear,
and calmly beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had
been scooped out of the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its
surface. The pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed
their eyes with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid
splendor that glowed from the brow of a cliff impending over the
enchanted lake. For the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery,
and found the long-sought shrine of the Great Carbuncle!

They threw their arms around each other, and trembled at their own
success; for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed thick upon
their memory, they felt themselves marked out by fate and the
consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood upward, they had
seen it shining like a distant star. And now that star was throwing its
intensest lustre on their hearts. They seemed changed to one another's
eyes, in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent
the same fire to the lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which
had rolled back before its power. But, with their next glance, they
beheld an object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone.
At the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle,
appeared the figure of a man, with his arms extended in the act of
climbing, and his face turned upward, as if to drink the full gush of
splendor. But he stirred not, no more than if changed to marble.

'It is the Seeker,' whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
husband's arm. 'Matthew, he is dead.'

'The joy of success has killed him,' replied Matthew, trembling
violently. 'Or, perhaps, the very light of the Great Carbuncle was
death!'

'The Great Carbuncle,' cried a peevish voice behind them. 'The Great
Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me.

They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his prodigious
spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at
the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great
Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if all the
scattered clouds were condensed about his person. Though its
radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet,
as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be
convinced that there was the least glimmer there.

'Where is your Great Humbug?' he repeated. 'I challenge you to make
me see it!'

'There,' said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. 'Take off those
abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!'

Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic's sight, in
at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people
gaze at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them
from his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the
Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he encountered it, when, with a
deep, shuddering groan, he dropped his head, and pressed both hands
across his miserable eyes. Thenceforth there was, in very truth, no
light of the Great Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of
heaven itself, for the poor Cynic. So long accustomed to View all
objects through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of
brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking upon
his naked vision, had blinded him forever.

'Matthew,' said Hannah, clinging to him, 'let us go hence!'

Matthew saw that she was faint, and kneeling down, supported her in
his arms, while he threw some of the thrillingly cold water of the
enchanted lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but could not
renovate her courage.

'Yes, dearest!' cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his
breast- 'we will go hence, and return to our humble cottage. The
blessed sunshine and the quiet moonlight shall come through our
window. We will kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth, at eventide,
and be happy in its light. But never again will we desire more light
than all the world may share with us.'

'No,' said his bride, 'for how could we live by day, or sleep by night,
in this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle!'

Out of the hollow of their hands, they drank each a draught from the
lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an earthly
lip. Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic, who uttered
not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own most wretched
heart, they began to descend the mountain. Yet, as they left the shore,
till then untrodden, of the spirit's lake, they threw a farewell glance
towards the cliff, and beheld the vapors gathering in dense volumes,
through which the gem burned duskily.

As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend
goes on to tell, that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon gave
up the quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake
himself again to his warehouse, near the town dock, in Boston. But,
as he passed through the Notch of the mountains, a war party of
Indians captured our unlucky merchant, and carried him to Montreal,
there holding him in bondage, till, by the payment of a heavy ransom,
he had woefully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By
his long absence, moreover, his affairs had become so disordered that,
for the rest of his life, instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a
sixpence worth of copper. Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned
to his laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he
ground to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible, and
burned with the blow-pipe, and published the result of his
experiments in one of the heaviest folios of the day. And, for all these
purposes, the gem itself could not have answered better than the
granite. The poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a
great piece of ice, which he found in a sunless chasm of the
mountains, and swore that it corresponded, in all points, with his idea
of the Great Carbuncle. The critics say, that, if his poetry lacked the
splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness of the ice. The Lord
de Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where he contented himself
with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled, in due course of time,
another coffin in the ancestral vault. As the funeral torches gleamed
within that dark receptacle, there was no need of the Great Carbuncle
to show the vanity of earthly pomp.

The Cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the
world, a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing desire
of light, for the wilful blindness of his former life. The whole night
long, he would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the moon and stars; he
turned his face eastward, at sunrise, as duly as a Persian idolater; he
made a pilgrimage to Rome, to witness the magnificent illumination
of St. Peter's Church; and finally perished in the great fire of London,
into the midst of which he had thrust himself, with the desperate idea
of catching one feeble ray from the blaze that was kindling earth and
heaven.

Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years, and were fond of
telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however, towards
the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with the full credence
that had been accorded to it by those who remembered the ancient
lustre of the gem. For it is affirmed that, from the hour when two
mortals had shown themselves so simply wise as to reject a jewel
which would have dimmed all earthly things, its splendor waned.
When other pilgrims reached the cliff, they found only an opaque
stone, with particles of mica glittering on its surface. There is also a
tradition that, as the youthful pair departed, the gem was loosened
from the forehead of the cliff, and fell into the enchanted lake, and
that, at noontide, the Seeker's form may still be seen to bend over its
quenchless gleam.

Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of old, and
say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of summer
lightning, far down the valley of the Saco. And be it owned that,
many a mile from the Crystal Hills, I saw a wondrous light around
their summits, and was lured, by the faith of poesy, to be the latest
pilgrim of the GREAT CARBUNCLE.