Chapter 2

Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of
the matter be needed, here we have it—Mr. B. was an editor.
Irascibility was his sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of
which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he
justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point—his
virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to
convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and
the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some
place of a similar title, out West.

I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up
his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the
impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed
in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The
Tea-Pot’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel
confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence
in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis had he been aware that, in
Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John
Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many years had there
quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely,
therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr.
Bullet-head found himself in Alex—— suppose we call it Nopolis,
‘for short’—but, as he did find himself there, he determined to
keep up his character for obst—for firmness, and remain. So
remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type,
etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the
‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued
the first number of ‘The Alexan’—that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis
Tea-Pot’—as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the
new paper.

The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant—not to say
severe. It was especially bitter about things in general—and as
for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in
particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery
that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon
John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I
cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-Pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim,
but one of them runs thus:

‘Oh, yes!—Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
is a genius—O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious!—what is this world
coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups
of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets.
Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the
dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared as follows:

‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined
paragraph: “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh,
goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That
accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is
neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We
really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t
an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he
came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as
much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful.”’

The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous
insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the
eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much
incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have
imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to
desperation. What!—he Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write
a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see
that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was
mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of
Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he,
Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
paragraph—aye! a whole article—in which that contemptible vowel
should not once—not even once—make its appearance. But no;—that
would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a
thought! The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as
O-wy as O-wy could be.

Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-Pot,’ came out merely with this
simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy
affair:

‘The editor of the “Tea-Pot” has the honor of advising the editor
of the “Gazette” that he (the “Tea-Pot”) will take an opportunity
in tomorrow morning’s paper, of convincing him (the “Gazette”)
that he (the “Tea-Pot”) both can and will be _his own master_, as
regards style;—he (the “Tea-Pot”) intending to show him (the
“Gazette”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with
which the criticism of him (the “Gazette”) inspires the
independent bosom of him (the “Tea-Pot”) by composing for the
especial gratification (?) of him (the “Gazette”) a leading
article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel—the emblem
of Eternity—yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of
him (the “Gazette”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his
(the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-Pot.”
“So much for Buckingham!”’

In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather
than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf
ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his
foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him
(the ‘Tea-Pot’!) that it was high time to ‘go to press’: turning
a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up
until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the
composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:—

‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another
time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know
you’re out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your
odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl—go!
You won’t! Oh, poh, poh, John don’t do so! You’ve _got_ to go,
you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow, for nobody owns you
here, you know! Oh! John, John, if you don’t go you’re no
homo—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a
poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or
frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now—cool! Do be cool, you
fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so—don’t! Don’t
hollo, nor howl nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how
you do look! Told you so, you know—but stop rolling your goose of
an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS.
to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home,
retired, with ineffable dignity to bed.

Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs
to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

In the first place, of course,—as the opening word was ‘So,’—he
made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph
with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw
himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but
who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without
the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his
astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles,
that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the
bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o
hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he
found _that_, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar
predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the
foreman.

‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing
without no o’s.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a
very ill humor at being kept so late.

‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
little un!’

‘What—what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere “G’zette”
devils is bin prowling ’bout here all night, and I spect he’s
gone and cabbaged ‘em every one.’

‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman,
getting purple with rage ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s
a good boy—you go over the first chance you get and hook every
one of their i’s and (d——n them!) their izzards.’

‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown—‘I’ll be into
‘em, I’ll let ‘em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that
ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know—else there’ll be the
d—l to pay, and—’

‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a
deep sigh, and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a long paragraph,
Bob?’

‘Shouldn’t call it a _wery_ long paragrab,’ said Bob.

‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! We must get to
press,’ said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work;
‘just stick in some other letter for o; nobody’s going to read
the fellow’s trash anyhow.’

‘Wery well,’ replied Bob, ‘here goes it!’ and off he hurried to
his case, muttering as he went: ‘Considdeble vell, them ere
expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to
gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d-n all their gizzards! Vell!
this here’s the chap as is just able for to do it.’ The fact is
that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he
was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in
printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but
the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it
almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the
letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather
the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in
the old times—long enough to render the substitution in question
an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have
considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case
of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

‘I shell have to x this ere paragrab,’ said he to himself, as he
read it over in astonishment, ‘but it’s jest about the awfulest
o-wy paragrab I ever did see’: so x it he did, unflinchingly, and
to press it went x-ed.

Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by
reading in ‘The Tea-Pot,’ the following extraordinary leader:

‘Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther
time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw
yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx!—sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur
xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl,—gx!
Yxu wxn’t? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu
knxw, sx gx at xnce, and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here,
yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx
hxmx—nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a
pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy, lxg, dxg, hxg, xr
frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw—cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu
fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx—dxn’t! Dxn’t
hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw
yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw,—but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse
xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a
bxwl!’

The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article,
is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by
the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in
the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head’s
residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that
gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could
tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at
length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a
medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance
of fancy.

A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in
a general way, his X-asperation.

‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’ suggested a fifth.

That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to
all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was
some talk about lynching the other one.

The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was,
simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town
mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a
problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this
case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of
X.

The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about his having
‘X-ed the paragrab’), did not meet with so much attention as I
think it deserved, although it was very openly and very
fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt
about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr.
Bullet-head ‘never could be persuaded fur to drink like other
folks, but vas continually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX
ale, and as a naiteral consekvence, it just puffed him up savage,
and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.’

METZENGERSTEIN

Pestis eram vivus—moriens tua mors ero.
—_Martin Luther_

Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why
then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to
say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the
interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the
doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves—that
is, of their falsity, or of their probability—I say nothing. I
assert, however, that much of our incredulity—as La Bruyère says
of all our unhappiness—“_vient de ne pouvoir être seuls_.” {*1}

But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which
were fast verging to absurdity. They—the Hungarians—differed very
essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, “_The
soul_,” said the former—I give the words of an acute and
intelligent Parisian—“_ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un corps
sensible: au reste—un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n’est que
la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._”

The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at
variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so
illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The
origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an
ancient prophecy—“A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as
the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall
triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.”

To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But
more trivial causes have given rise—and that no long while ago—to
consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were
contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs
of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom
friends; and the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might
look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the
palace Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal
magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable
feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What
wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction,
should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two
families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of
hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply—if it implied
anything—a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful
house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter
animosity by the weaker and less influential.

Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at
the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man,
remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal
antipathy to the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of
horses, and of hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age,
nor mental incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the
dangers of the chase.

Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet
of age. His father, the Minister G—, died young. His mother, the
Lady Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that
time, in his fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long
period—a child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in
a wilderness—in so magnificent a wilderness as that old
principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.

From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of
his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former,
entered immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were
seldom held before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were
without number. The chief in point of splendor and extent was the
“Château Metzengerstein.” The boundary line of his dominions was
never clearly defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit
of fifty miles.

Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so
well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was
afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed,
for the space of three days, the behavior of the heir out-Heroded
Herod, and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most
enthusiastic admirers. Shameful debaucheries—flagrant
treacheries—unheard-of atrocities—gave his trembling vassals
quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part—no
punctilios of conscience on his own—were thenceforward to prove
any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula.
On the night of the fourth day, the stables of the castle
Berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire; and the unanimous
opinion of the neighborhood added the crime of the incendiary to
the already hideous list of the Baron’s misdemeanors and
enormities.

But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young
nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast
and desolate upper apartment of the family palace of
Metzengerstein. The rich although faded tapestry hangings which
swung gloomily upon the walls, represented the shadowy and
majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors. _Here_,
rich-ermined priests, and pontifical dignitaries, familiarly
seated with the autocrat and the sovereign, put a veto on the
wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the fiat of papal
supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy. _There_, the
dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein—their muscular
war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes—startled
the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression; and _here_,
again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days
gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the
strains of imaginary melody.

But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the
gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing—or
perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of
audacity—his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an
enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the
tapestry as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his
rival. The horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood
motionless and statue-like—while farther back, its discomfited
rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

On Frederick’s lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became
aware of the direction which his glance had, without his
consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the
contrary, he could by no means account for the overwhelming
anxiety which appeared falling like a pall upon his senses. It
was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent
feelings with the certainty of being awake. The longer he gazed
the more absorbing became the spell—the more impossible did it
appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the
fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without becoming
suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he diverted his
attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming
stables upon the windows of the apartment.

The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned
mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment,
the head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its
position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in
compassion, over the prostrate body of its lord, was now
extended, at full length, in the direction of the Baron. The
eyes, before invisible, now wore an energetic and human
expression, while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red; and
the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full
view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.

Stupefied with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door.
As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the
chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the
quivering tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow—as
he staggered awhile upon the threshold—assuming the exact
position, and precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless
and triumphant murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into
the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered
three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril
of their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a
gigantic and fiery-colored horse.

“Whose horse? Where did you get him?” demanded the youth, in a
querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware
that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very
counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

“He is your own property, sire,” replied one of the equerries,
“at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying,
all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of
the Castle Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the
old Count’s stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray.
But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature; which is
strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow
escape from the flames.

“The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his
forehead,” interrupted a second equerry, “I supposed them, of
course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing—but all at
the castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse.”

“Extremely singular!” said the young Baron, with a musing air,
and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. “He is,
as you say, a remarkable horse—a prodigious horse! although, as
you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable
character; let him be mine, however,” he added, after a pause,
“perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even
the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.”

“You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned,
is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such had been the
case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence
of a noble of your family.”

“True!” observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of
the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color, and
a precipitate step. He whispered into his master’s ear an account
of the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry,
in an apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time,
into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but
from the low tone of voice in which these latter were
communicated, nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of
the equerries.

The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a
variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure,
and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his
countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber
should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own
possession.

“Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter
Berlifitzing?” said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after
the departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had
adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury,
down the long avenue which extended from the château to the
stables of Metzengerstein.

“No!” said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, “dead!
say you?”

“It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will
be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence.”

A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. “How
died he?”

“In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his
hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames.”

“I-n-d-e-e-d-!” ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and
deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

“Indeed;” repeated the vassal.

“Shocking!” said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the
château.

From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward
demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von
Metzengerstein. Indeed, his behavior disappointed every
expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of
many a manoeuvering mamma; while his habits and manner, still
less than formerly, offered any thing congenial with those of the
neighboring aristocracy. He was never to be seen beyond the
limits of his own domain, and, in this wide and social world, was
utterly companionless—unless, indeed, that unnatural, impetuous,
and fiery-colored horse, which he henceforward continually
bestrode, had any mysterious right to the title of his friend.

Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long
time, however, periodically came in. “Will the Baron honor our
festivals with his presence?” “Will the Baron join us in a
hunting of the boar?”—“Metzengerstein does not hunt;”
“Metzengerstein will not attend,” were the haughty and laconic
answers.

These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious
nobility. Such invitations became less cordial—less frequent—in
time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count
Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope “that the Baron
might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he
disdained the company of his equals; and ride when he did not
wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse.” This to
be sure was a very silly explosion of hereditary pique; and
merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to
become, when we desire to be unusually energetic.

The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for
the untimely loss of his parents—forgetting, however, his
atrocious and reckless behavior during the short period
immediately succeeding that bereavement. Some there were, indeed,
who suggested a too haughty idea of self-consequence and dignity.
Others again (among them may be mentioned the family physician)
did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy, and hereditary
ill-health; while dark hints, of a more equivocal nature, were
current among the multitude.

Indeed, the Baron’s perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
charger—an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from
every fresh example of the animal’s ferocious and demon-like
propensities—at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men,
a hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon—at the dead
hour of night—in sickness or in health—in calm or in tempest—the
young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that
colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded
with his own spirit.

There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late
events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania
of the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space
passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and
was found to exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest
expectations of the most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no
particular _name_ for the animal, although all the rest in his
collection were distinguished by characteristic appellations. His
stable, too, was appointed at a distance from the rest; and with
regard to grooming and other necessary offices, none but the
owner in person had ventured to officiate, or even to enter the
enclosure of that particular stall.