John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Wherein lies my pride?" asked Ebenezer, clearly disconcerted by his friend's observation.

"In thy very innocence, which you raise above mere circumstance and make a special virtue. 'Tis a Christain reverence you bear it, I swear!"

"Christian in a sense," Ebenezer replied, "albeit your Christians — St. Paul excepted — pay scant reverence to chastity in men. 'Tis valued as a sign — nay, a double sign, for't harketh back alike to Eve and Mary. Therein lies its difference from the cardinal virtues, which refer to naught beyond themselves: adultery's a mortal sin, proscribed by God's commandment — not so fornication, I believe."

"Then virginity's a secondary virtue, is't not, and less to be admired than faithfulness? I think not even More would gainsay that."

"But recall," Ebenezer insisted, "I said 'twas only in a sense I share the Christians' feeling. Methinks that mankind's virtues are of two main sorts — "

"Aye, that we learn in school," said Burlingame, who seemed prepared to end the colloquy. "Instrumental if they lead us to some end, and terminal if we love them in themselves. 'Tis schoolmen's cant."

"Nay," said Ebenezer, "that is not what I meant; those terms bear little meaning to the Christian, I believe, who on the one hand hopes by all his virtues to reach Heaven, and yet will swear that virtue is its own reward. What I meant was, that sundry virtues are — I might say plain, for want of proper language, and some significant. Among the first are honesty in speech and deed, fidelity, respect for mother and father, charity, and the like; the second head's comprised of things like eating fish on Friday, resting on the Sabbath, and coming virgin to the grave or marriage bed, whiche'er the case may be; they all mean naught when taken by themselves, like the strokes and scribbles we call writing — their virtue lies in what they stand for. Now the first, whether so designed or not, are matters of public policy, and thus apply to prudent men, be they heathens or believers. The second have small relevance to prudence, being but signs, and differ from faith to faith. The first are social, the second religious; the first are guides lor life, the second forms of ceremony; the first practical, the second mysterious or poetic — "

"I grasp the principle," Burlingame said.

"Well then," Ebenezer declared, "it follows that this second sort are purer, after a fashion, and in this way not inferior at all, but the reverse."

"La, you have the heart of a Scholastic," Burlingame said disgustedly. "I see no purity in 'em, save that all the sense is filtered out — the residue is nonsense."

"As you wish, Henry — I do not mean to argue Christianity but only my virginity, which if senseless is to me not therefore nonsense, but essence. 'Tis but a sign as with the Christians, that I grant, yet it pointeth not to Eden or to Bethlehem, but to my soul. I prize it not as a virtue, but as the very emblem of my self, and when I call me virgin and poet 'tis not more boast than who should say I'm male and English. Prithee chide me no more on't, and let us end this discourse that pleaseth you so little."

"Nonetheless," Burlingame declared, " 'twill be a fall worth watching when you stumble."

"I do not mean to fall."

Burlingame shrugged. "What climber doth? 'Tis but the more likely in your case, for that you travel as't were asleep — thy friend McEvoy was no dullard there, albeit a callous fellow. Yet haply the fall will open your eyes."

"I would have thought thee more my friend, Henry, but on this head thou'rt brusque as erst in London, when I went with Anna to St. Giles. Have you forgot that day in Cambridge, the pass wherein you found me? Or that malady whereof I spoke but yesterday, that I was wont to suffer in the winehouse? Think you I'd not rejoice," he went on, growing more aroused, "to be in sooth a climber, that stumbling would move men to fear and pity? I do not climb, but merely walk a road, and stumbling ne'er shall fall a mighty fall, but only cease to walk, or drift a wayless ship on every current, or haply just moss over like a stone. I see nor spectacle nor instruction in such a fall."

Burlingame made no more of the matter and apologized to Ebenezer for his curtness. Nonetheless he remained out of sorts, as did the poet, for some hours afterwards, and in fact it was not until a short time before they arrived in Plymouth that they entirely regained their spirits, and Burlingame, at Ebenezer's request, took up again the tale of his adventures, which he'd left at his discovery of the fragmentary journal.

"That portion of the Privie Journall that you read," said Burlingame, "so far from cooling the ardor of my quest, did but enflame it the more, as you might imagine, inasmuch as it said There was a Henry Burlingame, yet told me neither that he e'er had progeny, nor that among his children was my father. There was one ground for hope and speculation: namely, that Captain John Smith set out that very summer to explore the Chesapeake, wherein near half a century later I was found floating. Yet nowhere in his Historie doth he mention Burlingame, nor is that poor wight listed with the party. I searched the ancient papers of the colony and asked the length and breadth of Jamestown, but no word more could I find on the matter. I made bold to enquire of Nicholson himself whether he knew aught of other records in the Dominion. And he replied he had been there so short time he scarce knew where the privy was, but added, there was a grievous dearth of paper in the provinces, and 'twas no uncommon thing for officers of the government to ransack older records for paper writ on but the recto, to the end they might employ the verso for themselves. He himself deplored this practice, for he is a man devoted to the cause of learning, but he said there was no cure for't till the provinces erected their own paper mills.

"It seemed to me quite likely my Journall had suffered this fate, inasmuch as 'twas writ on a good grade of English paper, and the author had employed the recto only. I despaired of e'er discovering the rest, and in the fall of 1690 went with Captain Hill to London. Our intention was to litigate to clear the charges of seditious speech against him, and if possible to undo Colonel Coode and his companions. The moment was propitious, for Coode himself and Kenelm Cheseldyne, his speaker, had also sailed for London and would not have their bullies to defend 'em. I so arranged matters that a number of his enemies appeared in England that same season, and I thought that if we filed a host of depositions against him, we could thereby either work his ruin or at least detain him whilst we plotted farther. To this end I made a secret trip to Maryland ere we sailed, with the design of slipping privily into St. Mary's City and stealing the criminal records of Coode's courts, or bribing them stolen, for no clearer proof could be of his corruption. Howbeit, the man anticipated my plan, as oft he doth: I learned that he and Cheseldyne had carried off the records with 'em.

"In any case we set our plot in motion. No sooner did we dock at London in November than the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations subpoenaed Coode to confront Lord Baltimore before them, to answer that worthy's charges against him. At the same time Colonel Henry Coursey, of Kent County, petitioned against Coode and Cheseldyne, as did John Lillingstone, the rector of St. Paul's Parish in Talbot County, and ten other souls, all known Protestants — for 'twas Coode's chief defense for his rebellion that he was putting down the barbarous Papists. Finally Hill made his own petition, and even our friend Captain Burford of the Abraham & Francis, who had helped us flee to Nicholson and whose ship the rogues had lately crossed on, deposed in Plymouth that Coode had in his presence damned Lord Baltimore and vowed to spend the revenues embezzled from the Province.