The Delicious Vice | Page 2

of Juan Fernandez to that utmost ice-bound point of Siberia
where by chance or destiny the seven nails in the sole of a certain
mysterious person's shoe, in the month of October, 1831, formed a
cross--thus:
* * * * * * *
while on the American promontory opposite, "a young and handsome

woman replied to the man's despairing gesture by silently pointing to
heaven." The Wandering Jew may be gone, but the theater of that
appalling prologue still exists unchanged. That sigh will penetrate the
gloomy cell of the Abbe Faria, the frightful dungeons of the Inquisition,
the gilded halls of Vanity Fair, the deep forests of Brahmin and fakir,
the jousting list, the audience halls and the petits cabinets of kings of
France, sound over the trackless and storm-beaten ocean--will echo, in
short, wherever warm blood has jumped in the veins of honest men and
wherever vice has sooner or later been stretched groveling in the dust at
the feet of triumphant virtue.
And so, sighing to the uttermost ends of the earth, the old novel-reader
will confess that he wishes he hadn't. Had not read all those novels that
troop through his memory. Because, if he hadn't--and it is the
impossibility of the alternative that chills his soul with the despair of
cruel realization--if he hadn't, you see, he could begin at the very first,
right then and there, and read the whole blessed business through for
the first time. For the FIRST TIME, mark you! Is there anywhere in
this great round world a novel reader of true genius who would not do
that with the joy of a child and the thankfulness of a sage?
Such a dream would be the foundation of the story of a really noble Dr.
Faustus. How contemptible is the man who, having staked his life
freely upon a career, whines at the close and begs for another chance;
just one more--and a different career! It is no more than Mr. Jack
Hamlin, a friend from Calaveras County, California, would call "the
baby act," or his compeer, Mr. John Oakhurst, would denominate "a
squeal." How glorious, on the other hand, is the man who has spent his
life in his own way, and, at its eventide, waves his hand to the sinking
sun and cries out: "Goodbye; but if I could do so, I should be glad to go
over it all again with you--just as it was!" If honesty is rated in heaven
as we have been taught to believe, depend upon it the novel-reader who
sighs to eat the apple he has just devoured, will have no trouble
hereafter.
What a great flutter was created a few years ago when a blind
multi-millionaire of New York offered to pay a million dollars in cash
to any scientist, savant or surgeon in the world who would restore his
sight. Of course he would! It was no price at all to offer for the
service--considering the millions remaining. It was no more to him than

it would be to me to offer ten dollars for a peep at Paradise. Poor as I
am I will give any man in the world one hundred dollars in cash who
will enable me to remove every trace of memory of M. Alexandre
Dumas' "Three Guardsmen," so that I may open that glorious book with
the virgin capacity of youth to enjoy its full delight. More; I will
duplicate the same offer for any one or all of the following:
"Les Miserables," of M. Hugo.
"Don Quixote," of Senor Cervantes.
"Vanity Fair," of Mr. Thackeray.
"David Copperfield," of Mr. Dickens.
"The Cloister and the Hearth," of Mr. Reade.
And if my good friend, Isaac of York, is lending money at the old stand
and will take pianos, pictures, furniture, dress suits and plain household
plate as collateral, upon even moderate valuation, I will go fifty dollars
each upon the following:
"The Count of Monte Cristo," of M. Dumas.
"The Wandering Jew," of M. Sue.
"The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.," of Mr. Thackeray.
"Treasure Island," of Mr. Robbie Stevenson.
"The Vicar of Wakefield," of Mr. Goldsmith.
"Pere Goriot," of M. de Balzac.
"Ivanhoe," of Baronet Scott.
(Any one previously unnamed of the whole layout of M. Dumas,
excepting only a paretic volume entitled "The Conspirators.")
Now, the man who can do the trick for one novel can do it for all--and
there's a thousand dollars waiting to be earned, and a blessing also. It's
a bald "bluff," of course, because it can't be done as we all know. I
might offer a million with safety. If it ever could have been done the
noble intellectual aristocracy of novel-readers would have been reduced
to a condition of penury and distress centuries ago.
For, who can put fetters