Nathaniel Hawthorne

“ Struggling between pity and horror, I extended my hand, to which the virtuoso gave his own, still with the habitual courtesy of a man of the world, but without a single heart-throb of human brotherhood. The touch seemed like ice, yet I know not whether morally or physically. As I departed, he bade me observe that the inner door of the hall was constructed with the ivory leaves of the gateway through which Aeneas and the Sibyl had been dismissed from Hades. ”

“ Beside this bird of awful poesy stood a gray goose of very ordinary aspect.
“Stuffed goose is no such rarity,” observed I. “Why do you preserve such a specimen in your museum?”
“It is one of the flock whose cackling saved the Roman Capitol,” answered the virtuoso. “Many geese have cackled and hissed both before and since; but none, like those, have clamored themselves into immortality.” ”

“ A collection of old garments, banging on pegs, was worthy of some attention, especially the shirt of Nessus, Caesar’s mantle, Joseph’s coat of many colors, the Vicar of Bray’s cassock, Goldsmith’s peach-bloom suit, a pair of President Jefferson’s scarlet breeches, John Randolph’s red baize hunting-shirt, the drab small-clothes of the Stout Gentleman, and the rags of the “man all tattered and torn.” George Fox’s hat impressed me with deep reverence as a relic of perhaps the truest apostle that has appeared on earth for these eighteen hundred years. ”

“ At this moment he looked eagerly towards us, and, half starting from his seat, addressed me.
“I beseech you, kind sir,” said he, in a cracked, melancholy tone, “have pity on the most unfortunate man in the world. For Heaven’s sake, answer me a single question! Is this the town of Boston?”
“You have recognized him now,” said the virtuoso. “It is Peter Rugg, the missing man. I chanced to meet him the other day still in search of Boston, and conducted him hither; and, as he could not succeed in finding his friends, I have taken him into my service as doorkeeper. ”

“ I gazed into that fire,—which, symbolically, was the origin of all that was bright and glorious in the soul of man,—and in the midst of it, behold a little reptile, sporting with evident enjoyment of the fervid heat! ”

“ Here was AEtion’s cedar statue of AEsculapius, much decayed, and Alcon’s iron statue of Hercules, lamentably rusted. Here was the statue of Victory, six feet high, which the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias had held in his hand. Here was a forefinger of the Colossus of Rhodes, seven feet in length. Here was the Venus Urania of Phidias, and other images of male and female beauty or grandeur, wrought by sculptors who appeared never to have debased their souls by the sight of any meaner forms than those of gods or godlike mortals. ”

“ That my own land may not deem itself neglected, let me add that I was favored with a sight of the skull of King Philip, the famous Indian chief, whose head the Puritans smote off and exhibited upon a pole.
“Show me something else,” said I to the virtuoso. “Kings are in such an artificial position that people in the ordinary walks of life cannot feel an interest in their relics. ”

“ The virtuoso showed me the chisel of Phidias, Claude’s palette, and the brush of Apelles, observing that he intended to bestow the former either on Greenough, Crawford, or Powers, and the two latter upon Washington Allston. There was a small vase of oracular gas from Delphos, which I trust will be submitted to the scientific analysis of Professor Silliman. I was deeply moved on beholding a vial of the tears into which Niobe was dissolved; nor less so on learning that a shapeless fragment of salt was a relic of that victim of despondency and sinful regrets,—Lot’s wife. ”

“ They are all alike the food of my spirit. As well never to have lived as to lose them now.”
Without further parley we passed to the next alcove, the shelves of which were burdened with ancient volumes and with those rolls of papyrus in which was treasured up the eldest wisdom of the earth. Perhaps the most valuable work in the collection, to a bibliomaniac, was the Book of Hermes. For my part, however, I would have given a higher price for those six of the Sibyl’s books which Tarquin refused to purchase, and which the virtuoso informed me he had himself found in the cave of Trophonius. ”

“ Well, it is not likely to be offered twice within one man’s experience. Probably you have griefs which you seek to forget in death. I can enable you to forget them in life. Will you take a draught of Lethe?”
As he spoke, the virtuoso took from the shelf a crystal vase containing a sable liquor, which caught no reflected image from the objects around. ”

“ Yet there are men who abuse the sacred fire of their own souls to as foul and guilty a purpose.”
The virtuoso made no answer except by a dry laugh and an assurance that the salamander was the very same which Benvenuto Cellini had seen in his father’s household fire. He then proceeded to show me other rarities; for this closet appeared to be the receptacle of what he considered most valuable in his collection. ”