Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861




To return to the opinion advanced by Merker, and subsequently adopted by
Stanhope,--the thing is simply impossible. In the first place, it would
have been impossible for an impostor to elude discovery. To trace him
would have been the easiest thing in the world. With a vigilant police,
in a thickly settled country, how could a man leave his place of abode,
and travel, were it for ever so short a distance, without being known?
But this is the least consideration. Caspar's whole life, his intellect,
his body, the feats which he accomplished, when submitted to the most
searching tests, were a refutation of the charge. But when it is
added that he wounded himself in order to do away with suspicion, the
accusation becomes so absurd as scarcely to merit refutation. It is
answered by the fact, that it was proved, from the nature of the
wounds, in both cases, that self-infliction was impossible. Nor is it
conceivable that any one should have been able so long to deceive
people who were constantly with him and always on the alert. And it is
remarkable that they who saw most of Caspar, and knew him best, were
most firmly convinced of his integrity,--whilst his traducers were,
almost without an exception, men who had never known him intimately.
Feuerbach, Daumer, Binder, Meier, Fuhrmann, and many others, maintain
his honesty in the strongest terms.

On the other hand, it is said, that it is equally impossible for a
person to have been kept in any community in the manner in which it is
asserted that he was kept; discovery was inevitable. But it must be
remembered that this instance does not stand alone. If search were made,
many cases of the same kind might be collected. It is by no means so
rare an occurrence for persons to be kept secluded in such a manner as
to conceal their existence from the world. Daumer mentions two similar
cases which happened about the same time. The very year that Caspar
Hauser appeared, the son of a lawyer, named Fleischmann, just deceased,
was discovered in a retired chamber of the house. He was thirty-eight
years old, and had been confined there since his twelfth year. The other
case, also mentioned by Feuerbach, was still more distressing. Dr. Horn
saw, in the infirmary at Salzburg, a girl, twenty-two years of age, who
had been brought up in a pig-sty. One of her legs was quite crooked,
from her having sat with them crossed; she grunted like a hog; and her
actions were "brutishly unseemly in human dress." Daumer also relates a
third case, which was made the subject of a romantic story published in
a Nuremberg paper, but which, he says, lacks confirmation. It was the
discovery, in a secret place, of the grown-up son of a clergyman by his
housekeeper. Whether this be true or not, both Feuerbach and Daumer
believe that many similar instances do exist, which never come to light.
It is not impossible, therefore, that Caspar Hauser was confined in a
cellar to which none but his keeper sought entrance. Who would suspect
the existence of a human being, taught to be perfectly submissive and
quiet and to have no wants, in such a place, when even the existence
of the subterranean, prison itself was probably unknown? The cases
mentioned above were certainly more singular in this respect.

But Eschricht's opinion is the most peculiar of all. In his "Unverstand
mid schlechte Erziehung," he maintains that Caspar was an idiot until
he was brought to Nuremberg, that his mind was then strengthened and
developed, and that he was then transformed from an idiot into an
impostor. This is still more impossible than Stanhope's theory; for in
this case Daumer, Feuerbach, Hiltel the jailer, Binder the mayor, and
indeed all Caspar's earliest friends, instead of being victims of an
imposture, are made partakers in the fraud. No one acquainted with the
irreproachable character of these men could entertain the idea for a
minute; and when we remember that it was not one, but many, who must
have been parties to it, it becomes doubly impossible.

We come now to consider the opinion of Feuerbach; and we shall do it the
more carefully, because in it, we feel confident, lies the true solution
of the question. He was at the time President of the Court of Appeal of
the Circle of Rezat. He had risen to this honorable position gradually,
and it was the reward of his distinguished merit alone. His works on
criminal jurisprudence, and the penal code which he drew up for the
kingdom of Bavaria, and which was adopted by other states, had placed
him in the first rank of criminal lawyers. It was he who conducted
the first judicial investigations concerning Caspar Hauser. He was,
therefore, intimately acquainted with all the circumstances of the case,
and had ample opportunity to form a deliberate opinion. How the idea
originated, that Caspar Hauser belonged to the House of Baden, it is
difficult to say. Feuerbach never published it to the world. In his book
on Caspar Hauser he makes no mention of it; but in 1832 he addressed a
paper to Queen Caroline of Bavaria, headed, "Who might Caspar Hauser
be?" in which he endeavors to show that he was the son of the
Grand-Duchess Stephanie. This paper was, we believe, first published
in 1852, in his "Life and Works," by his son.[D] The first part of it
treats of Caspar's rank and position in general, and he comes to the
following conclusions. Caspar was a legitimate child. Had he been
illegitimate, less dangerous and far easier means would have been
resorted to for concealing his existence and suppressing a knowledge
of his parentage. And here we may add, that the supposition has never
prevailed that he was the offspring of a criminal connection, and that
these means were taken for suppressing the mother's disgrace. A note
which Caspar brought with him, when he appeared at Nuremberg, indicated
that such was the case, but it was so evidently a piece of deception
that it never obtained much credit. The second conclusion at which
Feuerbach arrives is, that people were implicated who had command of
great and unusual means,--means which could prompt an attempt at murder
in a crowded city and in the open day, and which could over-bribe all
rewards offered for a disclosure. Third, Caspar was a person on whose
life or death great interests depended, else there would not have been
such care to conceal his existence. Interest, and not revenge or hate,
was the motive. He must have been a person of high rank. To prove this,
Feuerbach refers to dreams of Caspar's. On one occasion, particularly,
he dreamt that he was conducted through a large castle, the appearance
of which he imagined that he recognized, and afterwards minutely
described. This Feuerbach thinks was only the awakening of past
recollections. It would be interesting to know whether any palace
corresponding to the description given exists. In the absence of such
knowledge, this point of Feuerbach's argument appears a rather weak one.
From the above propositions he concludes that Caspar was the legitimate
child of princely parents, who was removed in order to open the
succession to others, in whose way he stood.

[Footnote D: ANSELM RITTER VON FEUERBACH'S _Leben und Wirken, aus
seinen ausgedruckten Briefen, Tagebuechern, Vortraegen und Denkschriften,
veroeffentlicht von seinem Sohne_, LUDWIG FEUERBACH. Leipzig, 1852.]

The second division of the paper relates to the imprisonment, and
here he takes a ground entirely opposed to the opinions of others. He
believes that he was thus kept as a protection against some greater
evil. His wants were supplied, he was well taken care of, and his keeper
is therefore to be looked upon as his protector. Daumer sees in the
keeper nothing but a hired murderer, whose courage or whose wickedness
failed him. It is certainly difficult to imagine a kind friend immuring
one in a dark subterranean vault, feeding one on bread, excluding light,
fellowship, amusement, thoughts,--never saying a word, but studiously
allowing one's mind to become a dreary waste. It is a friendship to
which most of us would prefer death. We are therefore inclined to
think that Daumer is here in the right. But whatever the nature of his
imprisonment, the principal argument does not lose its force.

In the third place, Feuerbach speaks of the family to which Caspar must
have belonged. Just about the time of Caspar's birth, the eldest son of
the Grand-Duchess of Baden died an infant. His death was followed in
a few years by that of his only brother, leaving several sisters, who
could not inherit the duchy. By these deaths the old House of the
Zaehringer became extinct, and the offspring of a morganatic marriage
became the heirs to the throne. It was, therefore, for their interest
that the other branch should die out. In addition to this, the mother
of the new house was a woman of unbounded ambition and determined
character, and had a bitter hatred for the Grand-Duchess. Without laying
too much stress, then, upon the nearness in date of the elder child's
death and Caspar's birth, as given in the letter, there is reason to
suppose that they were the same person. There was every feeling of
interest to prompt the deed, there was the opportunity of sickness to
accomplish it in, and there was an unscrupulous woman to take advantage
of it. Is it, then, impossible that she, having command of the
house-hold, should have been able to substitute a dead for the living
child? Accept the proposition, and the mystery is solved; reject it, and
we are still groping in the dark. Nevertheless, there are circumstances
which, even then, are incapable of explanation; but it is the most
satisfactory theory, and certainly has less objections than the others.
Feuerbach came to this conclusion early; for his paper addressed to
Queen Caroline of Bavaria was written in 1832, the year before Caspar's
death. Delicacy forbade the open discussion of the question; but, even
at the time, this theory found many supporters. Some even went so far
as to say that Feuerbach's sudden death the same year was owing to the
indefatigable zeal with which he was ferreting out the mystery.

Of all the different explanations, then, which have been given, that of
Feuerbach seems to be the most satisfactory. At the same time, like the
rest, it is founded on conjecture. Its truth may never be proved. They
whose interest it was to suppress the matter thirty years ago, and who
resorted to such extreme measures in doing so, no doubt took ample
precaution that every trace should be erased. It is barely possible that
some confession or the discovery of some paper may cast light upon the
subject; but the length of time which has elapsed renders it exceedingly
improbable, and the mystery of Caspar Hauser, like the mysteries of the
Iron Mask and Junius, will always remain a fruitful source of conjecture
only.

It may not be uninteresting to close this sketch with the consideration
of a point of law raised by Feuerbach in connection with the subject. It
will be recollected that he calls his book "Caspar Hauser. An Example
of a Crime against the Life of Man's Soul." The crime committed against
Caspar Hauser was, according to the Bavarian code, twofold. There was
the crime of _illegal imprisonment_, and the crime of _exposure_. And
here Feuerbach advances the doctrine, that it was not only the actual
confinement which amounted to illegal imprisonment, but that "we must
incontestably, and, indeed, principally, regard as such the cruel
withholding from him of the most ordinary gifts which Nature with a
liberal hand extends even to the most indigent,--the depriving him
of all the means of mental development and culture,--the unnatural
detention of a human soul in a state of irrational animality." "An
attempt," he says, "by artificial contrivances, to seclude a man from
Nature and from all intercourse with rational beings, to change
the course of his human destiny, and to withdraw from him all the
nourishment afforded by those spiritual substances which Nature has
appointed for food to the human mind, that it may grow and flourish,
and be instructed and developed and formed,--such an attempt must, even
quite independently of its actual consequences, be considered as,
in itself, a highly criminal invasion of man's most sacred and most
peculiar property,--of the freedom and the destiny of his soul.
...Inasmuch as the whole earlier part of his life was thus taken from
him, he may be said to have been the subject of a partial soul-murder."
This crime, if recognized, would, according to Feuerbach, far outweigh
the mere crime of illegal imprisonment, and the latter would be merged
in it.

Tittmann, in his "Hand-Book of Penal Law," also speaks of crimes against
the intellect, and particularly mentions the separation of a person from
all human society, if practised upon a child before it has learned to
speak and until the intellect Las become sealed up, as well as the
intentional rearing of a person to ignorance, as reducible to this head.
This was written before Caspar's case had occurred. He says, also, that
they are similar to cases of homicide; because the latter are punished
for destroying the rational being, and not the physical man. Murder and
the destruction of the intellect are, therefore, equally punishable. The
one merits the punishment of death as well as the other. Nor are we to
take the possibility of a cure into consideration, any more than we do
the possibility of extinguishing a fire. But where the law does not
prescribe the punishment of death irrespectively of the possibility of
recovery, the punishment would rarely exceed ten years in the House of
Correction. We must understand Tittmann's remarks, however, to refer
entirely to the law of Saxony,--that being the government under which he
lived, and the only one in whose criminal code this crime is recognized.

Feuerbach wished to have this murder of the soul inserted in the
criminal code of Bavaria as a punishable crime; but he was unsuccessful,
and the whole doctrine has subsequently been condemned. Mittermaier, in
a note to his edition of Feuerbach's "Text-Book of German Criminal Law,"
denies that there is any foundation for the distinction taken by him and
Tittmann. He says, that, in the first place, it has not such an actual
existence as is capable of proof; and, secondly, all crimes under it
can easily be reached by some other law. The last objection does not,
however, seem to be a very serious one. If, as Feuerbach says, the
crime against the soul is more heinous than that against the body, it
certainly deserves the first attention, even if the one is not merged in
the other. The crime being greater, the punishment would be greater;
and the demands of justice would no more be satisfied by the milder
punishment than if a murderer were prosecuted as a nuisance. The fact,
therefore, that the crime is reducible to some different head, is not an
objection. We meet with the most serious difficulty when we consider the
possibility of proof. Taking it for granted that the crime does exist in
the abstract, the only question is, whether it is of such a nature that
it would be expedient for government to take cognizance of it. The soul
being in its nature so far beyond the reach of man, and the difficulty
of ever proving the effect of human actions upon it, would seem to
indicate that it were better to allow a few exceptional cases to pass
unnoticed than to involve the criminal courts in endless and fruitless
inquiry. Upon the ground of expediency only should the crime go
unnoticed, and not because it can be reached in some other way. For
proof that it does exist, we can point to nothing more convincing than
the life of Caspar Hauser itself. No one can doubt that his soul was the
victim of a crime, for which the perpetrator, untouched by human laws,
stands accused before the throne of God.

* * * * *


PAMPENEA.

AN IDYL.


Lying by the summer sea,
I had a dream of Italy.

Chalky cliffs and miles of sand,
Ragged reefs and salty caves,
And the sparkling emerald waves
Faded; and I seemed to stand,
Myself a languid Florentine,
In the heart of that fair land.
And in a garden cool and green,
Boccaccio's own enchanted place,
I met Pampenea face to face,--
A maid so lovely that to see
Her smile is to know Italy.

Her hair was like a coronet
Upon her Grecian forehead set,
Where one gem glistened sunnily,
Like Venice, when first seen at sea.
I saw within her violet eyes
The starlight of Italian skies,
And on her brow and breast and hand
The olive of her native land.

And knowing how, in other times,
Her lips were ripe with Tuscan rhymes
Of love and wine and dance, I spread
My mantle by an almond-tree:
"And here, beneath the rose," I said,
"I'll hear thy Tuscan melody!"

I heard a tale that was not told
In those ten dreamy days of old,
When Heaven, for some divine offence,
Smote Florence with the pestilence,
And in that garden's odorous shade
The dames of the Decameron,
With each a happy lover, strayed,
To laugh and sing, at sorest need,
To lie in the lilies, in the sun,
With glint of plume and golden brede.

And while she whispered in my ear,
The pleasant Arno murmured near,
The dewy, slim chameleons run
Through twenty colors in the sun,
The breezes broke the fountain's glass,
And woke Aeolian melodies,
And shook from out the scented trees
The bleached lemon-blossoms on the grass.

The tale? I have forgot the tale!--
A Lady all for love forlorn;
A Rosebud, and a Nightingale
That bruised his bosom on a thorn;
A pot of rubies buried deep;
A glen, a corpse, a child asleep;
A Monk, that was no monk at all,
I' the moonlight by a castle-wall;--
Kaleidoscopic hints, to be
Worked up in farce or tragedy.

Now while the sweet-eyed Tuscan wove
The gilded thread of her romance,
(Which I have lost by grievous chance,)
The one dear woman that I love,
Beside me in our seaside nook,
Closed a white finger in her book,
Half-vexed that she should read, and weep
For Petrarch, to a man asleep.
And scorning me, so tame and cold,
She rose, and wandered down the shore,
Her wine-dark drapery, fold in fold,
Imprisoned by an ivory hand;
And on a ridge of granite, half in sand,
She stood, and looked at Appledore.

And waking, I beheld her there
Sea-dreaming in the moted air,
A Siren sweet and debonair,
With wristlets woven of colored weeds,
And oblong lucent amber beads
Of sea-kelp shining in her hair.
And as I mused on dreams, and how
The something in us never sleeps,
But laughs or sings or moans or weeps,
She turned,--and on her breast and brow
I saw the tint that seemed not won
From kisses of New England sun;
I saw on brow and breast and hand
The olive of a sunnier land!
She turned,--and lo! within her eyes
The starlight of Italian skies!

Most dreams are dark, beyond the range
Of reason; oft we cannot tell
If they be born of heaven or hell;
But to my soul it seems not strange,
That, lying by the summer sea,
With that dark woman watching me,
I slept, and dreamed of Italy!




THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.


CHAPTER XXV.

THE PERILOUS HOUR.


Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided on the particular mode
and the precise period of relieving himself from the unwarrantable
interference which threatened to defeat his plans. The luxury of feeling
that he had his man in his power was its own reward. One who watches
in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter unconsciousness, is
illuminating his apartment and himself so that every movement of his
head and every button on his coat can be seen and counted, especially
if he holds a loaded rifle in his hand, experiences a peculiar kind of
pleasure, which he naturally hates to bring to its climax by testing his
skill as a marksman upon the object of his attention.

Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost as distinct as we
sometimes observe in those persons who are the subjects of the condition
known as _double consciousness_. On his New England side he was cunning
and calculating, always cautious, measuring his distance before he
risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were throwing his lasso. But
he was liable to intercurrent fits of jealousy and rage, such as the
light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiving,--blinding paroxysms
of passion, which for the time overmastered him, and which, if they
found no ready outlet, transformed themselves into the more dangerous
forces that worked through the instrumentality of his cool craftiness.

He had failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was any
relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as might
exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil. A book,
or a note, even, did not prove the existence of any sentiment. At one
time he would be devoured by suspicions, at another he would try to
laugh himself out of them. And in the mean while he followed Elsie's
tastes as closely as he could, determined to make some impression upon
her,--to become a habit, a convenience, a necessity,--whatever might aid
him in the attainment of the one end which was now the aim of his life.

It was to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that he
said to her one morning,--"Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and let us
have a dance."

He had struck the right vein in the girl's fancy, for she was in the
mood for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of the
more empty apartments. What there was in this particular kind of dance
which excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who looked in
with the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, will remember
that she was strangely carried away by it, and became almost fearful in
the vehemence of her passion. The sound of the castanets seemed to make
her alive all over. Dick knew well enough what the exhibition would
be, and was almost afraid of her at these moments; for it was like
the dancing mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary light
amusement of joyous youth,--a convulsion of the body and the mind,
rather than a series of voluntary modulated motions.

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband. Her eyes began to
glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves.
Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed upon her necklace. His
face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving the question, why
she always wore something about her neck. The chain of mosaics she had
on at that moment displaced itself at every step, and he was peering
with malignant, searching eagerness to see if an unsunned ring of
fairer hue than the rest of the surface, or any less easily explained
peculiarity, were hidden by her ornaments.

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it hastily
in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood
looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her eyes
narrowing in the way he had known so long and well.

"What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What do you stop for?" he said.

Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious light.
The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface--thoughts took this
opportunity to break out.

"You wouldn't act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,--would you,
Elsie?" he asked.

It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the effect
of his question.

Elsie _colored_,--not much, but still perceptibly. Dick could not
remember that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before,
in all his experience of her fitful changes of mood. It had a singular
depth of significance, therefore, for him; he knew how hardly her color
came. Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others, it betrays
a profound inward agitation,--a perturbation of the feelings far more
trying than the passions which with many easily moved persons break
forth in tears. All who have observed much are aware that some men, who
have seen a good deal of life in its less chastened aspects and are
anything but modest, will blush often and easily, while there are
delicate and sensitive women who can turn pale, or go into fits, if
necessary, but are very rarely seen to betray their feelings in their
cheeks, even when their expression shows that their inmost soul is
blushing scarlet.

Presently she answered, abruptly and scornfully,--

"Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not vex me as you do."

"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent,--"a
gentleman! Come, Elsie, you've got the Dudley blood in your veins,
and it doesn't do for you to call this poor, sneaking schoolmaster a
gentleman!"

He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush on her
cheek was becoming a vivid glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he saw
that he had reached some deep-lying centre of emotion. There was no
longer any doubt in his mind. With another girl these signs of confusion
might mean little or nothing; with her they were decisive and final.
Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon.

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