The Case of Charles Dexter Ward | Page 7

say of Curwen's town house in Olney Court; not
so much the fine new one built in 1761, when the man must have been nearly a century
old, but the first low gambrel-roofed one with the windowless attic and shingled sides,
whose timbers he took the peculiar precaution of burning after its demolition. Here there
was less mystery, it is true; but the hours at which lights were seen, the secretiveness of
the two swarthy foreigners who comprised the only menservants, the hideous indistinct
mumbling of the incredibly aged French housekeeper, the large amounts of food seen to
enter a door within which only four persons lived, and the quality of certain voices often
heard in muffled conversation at highly unseasonable times, all combined with what was
known of the Pawtuxet farm to give the place a bad name.
In choicer circles, too, the Curwen home was by no means undiscussed; for as the
newcomer had gradually worked into the church and trading life of the town, he had
naturally made acquaintances of the better sort, whose company and conversation he was
well fitted by education to enjoy. His birth was known to be good, since the Curwens or
Corwins of Salem needed no introduction in New England. It developed that Joseph
Curwen had travelled much in very early life, living for a time in England and making at
least two voyages to the Orient; and his speech, when he deigned to use it, was that of a
learned and cultivated Englishman. But for some reason or other Curwen did not care for
society. Whilst never actually rebuffing a visitor, he always reared such a wall of reserve
that few could think of anything to say to him which would not sound inane.
There seemed to lurk in his bearing some cryptic, sardonic arrogance, as if he had come
to find all human beings dull though having moved among stranger and more potent
entities. When Dr. Checkley the famous wit came from Boston in 1738 to be rector of
King's Church, he did not neglect calling on one of whom he soon heard so much; but left
in a very short while because of some sinister undercurrent he detected in his host's
discourse. Charles Ward told his father, when they discussed Curwen one winter evening,
that he would give much to learn what the mysterious old man had said to the sprightly
cleric, but that all diarists agree concerning Dr. Checkley's reluctance to repeat anything
he had heard. The good man had been hideously shocked, and could never recall Joseph
Curwen without a visible loss of the gay urbanity for which he was famed.
More definite, however, was the reason why another man of taste and breeding avoided
the haughty hermit. In 1746 Mr. John Merritt, an elderly English gentleman of literary
and scientific leanings, came from Newport to the town which was so rapidly overtaking
it in standing, and built a fine country seat on the Neck in what is now the heart of the
best residence section. He lived in considerable style and comfort, keeping the first coach
and liveried servants in town, and taking great pride in his telescope, his microscope, and

his well-chosen library of English and Latin books. Hearing of Curwen as the owner of
the best library in Providence, Mr. Merritt early paid him a call, and was more cordially
received than most other callers at the house had been. His admiration for his host's
ample shelves, which besides the Greek, Latin, and English classics were equipped with a
remarkable battery of philosophical, mathematical, and scientific works including
Paracelsus, Agricola, Van Helmont, Sylvius, Glauber, Boyle, Boerhaave, Becher, and
Stahl, led Curwen to suggest a visit to the farmhouse and laboratory whither he had never
invited anyone before; and the two drove out at once in Mr. Merritt's coach.
Mr. Merritt always confessed to seeing nothing really horrible at the farmhouse, but
maintained that the titles of the books in the special library of thaumaturgical, alchemical,
and theological subjects which Curwen kept in a front room were alone sufficient to
inspire him with a lasting loathing. Perhaps, however, the facial expression of the owner
in exhibiting them contributed much of the prejudice. This bizarre collection, besides a
host of standard works which Mr. Merritt was not too alarmed to envy, embraced nearly
all the cabbalists, daemonologists, and magicians known to man; and was a
treasure-house of lore in the doubtful realms of alchemy and astrology. Hermes
Trismegistus in Mesnard's edition, the Turba Philosophorum, Geber's Liber
Investigationis, and Artephius's Key of Wisdom all were there; with the cabbalistic Zohar,
Peter Jammy's set of Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully's Ars Magna et Ultima in
Zetsner's edition, Roger Bacon's Thesaurus Chemicus, Fludd's Clavis Alchimiae, and
Trithemius's De Lapide Philosophico crowding