Frederic Beasley - Papers from Overlook-House

I hope that I have copied these papers with commendable accuracy. We trust that they will add to the happiness of those who read them, and prove at the same time to be profitable. May they increase kind impressions! May they sow seeds that shall have the sun and dew that never falls on growth that is evil! Man has tablets in the heart, for inscriptions greater, and more enduring, than those of the great ledges of rock in the far East.

As one would hesitate to write the outlines of his coming destiny, if such a pen of Providence could be ready for his hand, so he, who has any love for others, would pause before he would carve, even in faintest letters, one word on these, which could sully the surface, where the indestructibility warns us, that all is an eternal record with Him, whose eye is too pure to look upon iniquity. I need not attempt, like authors of a former age, to solicit a favorable criticism, from the "gentle reader." If I say, here, that the hall has rung with peals of laughter, as some of the papers of the old book-case have been read, that some have shed tears over the Ghost of Ford Inn, and said, it is too sad, these assurances will not predispose one who shall open the proposed volume, to utter a favorable opinion. These waifs must be cast on the waters, like all other similar ventures. We must wait, and learn where Providence shall waft them.

Will these papers outlive this decaying house? Will men love us because we have sent them forth? Will we, because of them, be grasped with a kindlier hand? Will they soften hearts in this trying world, and aid men to a greater charity?

But I must pause. Lamps will grow dim. Warnings will come, that letters may attain to too great prolixity. Readers are often not sufficiently sagacious, to know that when Homer nods, he has a design. Can I apply, what old Dr. South, the great and witty preacher said, when he printed the sermon at the Royal mandate, that the Majesty of the Realm must excuse the length of the discourse, inasmuch as he had not had time to make it shorter? Or, shall I remember the severe speech, doubtless a dutiful necessity, a knife to remove such a miserable vanity as often makes men worse than useless; the severe speech of an Eastern Divine, who, when the young preacher waited all day in vain for a compliment, to his morning's discourse, and said, in desperation, as the evening waned in the study, "Doctor, I hope that I did not weary your people with the length of my discourse," had for reply the quiet answer, "No, sir; nor by the depth of it."

So, as you have the infirmity of going to sleep over the most interesting discourse, as the lamp is going out, as I am nervous, sitting up at such a late hour, as the paper is all written over, and I have none other near at hand, I release you. Go to sleep, but wake the world to-morrow, and then say that I am your friend.

I stepped from the stage-sleigh, in the village of Overlook, at the post-office: for there the driver stopped to leave his mail-bag. That important article, which, as a boy, I used to regard with undefined dread, for I associated it with a poor wretch, who was hung for laying villanous hands upon one, in a desolate road, was the old-fashioned leather sack, full of iron rivets.

Perhaps at the time when this writing may reach the press, such a contrivance may have become antiquated; and therefore I had better add to my description, that a weighty chain passed through iron rings, to secure the opening; and finally, there was the brass padlock, at which the Indian gazed with such contempt, when he said, "Brass lock upon leather! that makes my knife laugh." I stepped from the heavy stage-sleigh into the one sent for me by Judge Almore, and it was like passing from a heavy craft on the waters, into one of lesser make, and lighter burden. John Frake, the farmer at Overlook Manor, had driven over for me. His horses seemed exhilarated by the bells, and we dashed forward in splendid style. John Frake was a character; a real man in energy, work, and talk; frank, and good-hearted.

As we drove along, in a loud voice, that permitted not a word to be lost by the melody of the bells, he made his comments upon all things, and especially on the inhabitants along the streets of the village.

"Dr. Norkin lives there," he said, pointing with his whip to a comfortable house. And then as if pondering the beginning of a long train of thought, he added,

"Those Yankees are unaccountable smart people."

"The doctor is a Yankee, then?"

"Oh no! there aint enough Yankee in him to make a spot on the map of Massachusetts. Not but that the doctor has lots of common sense, and keeps all that he has got ready for use, when wanted, as ready as my plough to go through the ground. But those Yankees have the most uncommon ways of putting things together; just as if you took something out of the middle of the earth, and made it fit something on the top of a mountain."

"Yes, but I don't see what Yankees have to do with the doctor."

"I'll tell you what I was thinking about. I was once at the mountains, forty miles off, where there is a mineral spring. There is where ladies and gentlemen go to drink water, eat all manner of things at the tavern, and get well, when they never have been sick. Iron in the water at the springs! Bless you; it would not divide the nails in a horse-shoe in a month, to the whole army of the Revolution, if they had drunk of nothing else. Well our judge and the family followed the fashion. Fashion is a runaway horse that carries a great load of straw behind him, and sometimes he has after him things much better than straw. I drove up to bring them home. But the judge was taken sick just before I got there, and sent for our doctor here, to come up and cure him. In the night, after I got there, one of your uncommon Yankees, who seemed to be well off, and to do fifty things, from what I could gather, to make money, had a bad attack; unlike anything I ever heard of around here. He was awful bad. I heard the racket, and went into his room.

"'My friend,' says I, 'you do look awful bad' – for I always speak my honest sentiments, in a sick-room, or out of it. 'I thank you for your sympathy,' says he – and yet somehow it sounded as if he didn't. I presumed he didn't want any one to talk to him. 'Send down for Dr. Norkin,' says the landlord. 'He is here;' this is what he said to the sick man. 'He lives forty miles off – at Overlook. But he is here, attending on Judge Almore – who has been ill.'

"The sick man, after a groan or two, raised himself up in his bed. It was as good as the best apple, to see how quickly he seemed to ungear his mind from his sick body. He gave a long thought. Then he said,

"'Did the judge send for that doctor, because he was in the house at the time when he was taken sick? Or did he send all the way to Overlook for him to come here to him?'

"'He sent for him to Overlook,' says the landlord, before I could put in a word.

"'Then I'll see him,' says he – speaking quickly out, and firm like, as if he was a king. Now wasn't that cute? I tell you such men think faster, and a great way before other people. Well; it's a free country, and all people aint bound to do their thinking alike."

We now came to the entrance of the lane, that led up to Overlook House.

Two large cherry trees stood on either side of the gate. I drew the attention of my companion to them. They were very venerable, and their winter boughs showed some signs of decay.

"Them big trees," – said he. "Either of them, I'll engage is as old as three average men. They say a man averages thirty years of life. Now they are full ninety years old, and big at that."

"You have lived long with the judge?"

"Bless your heart, sir, long indeed. But he's a good man. There's few that don't say so – well, thank God, it is those kind of people that don't. When he speaks and acts, you feel that our Lord has taught him his religion – just as we know it is Sunday, when we wake and hear the church-bells ringing, and all the sun-light seems full of the sweet sound, and all the sound as if it had gone through the bright sun. I do love Sunday."