



Produced by David Widger.  HTML version by Al Haines.









                     MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE

                      By Nathaniel Hawthorne

                       THE HALL OF FANTASY



It has happened to me, on various occasions, to find myself
in a certain edifice which would appear to have some of the
characteristics of a public exchange.  Its interior is a spacious
hall, with a pavement of white marble.  Overhead is a lofty dome,
supported by long rows of pillars of fantastic architecture, the
idea of which was probably taken from the Moorish ruins of the
Alhambra, or perhaps from some enchanted edifice in the Arabian
tales.  The windows of this hall have a breadth and grandeur of
design and an elaborateness of workmanship that have nowhere been
equalled, except in the Gothic cathedrals of the Old World.  Like
their prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven only through
stained and pictured glass, thus filling the hall with many-colored
radiance and painting its marble floor with beautiful or grotesque
designs; so that its inmates breathe, as it were, a visionary
atmosphere, and tread upon the fantasies of poetic minds.  These
peculiarities, combining a wilder mixture of styles than even an
American architect usually recognizes as allowable,--Grecian,
Gothic, Oriental, and nondescript,--cause the whole edifice to give
the impression of a dream, which might be dissipated and shattered
to fragments by merely stamping the foot upon the pavement.  Yet,
with such modifications and repairs as successive ages demand, the
Hall of Fantasy is likely to endure longer than the most substantial
structure that ever cumbered the earth.

It is not at all times that one can gain admittance into this
edifice, although most persons enter it at some period or other of
their lives; if not in their waking moments, then by the universal
passport of a dream.  At my last visit I wandered thither unawares
while my mind was busy with an idle tale, and was startled by the
throng of people who seemed suddenly to rise up around me.

"Bless me!  Where am I?" cried I, with but a dim recognition of the
place.

"You are in a spot," said a friend who chanced to be near at hand,
"which occupies in the world of fancy the same position which the
Bourse, the Rialto, and the Exchange do in the commercial world.
All who have affairs in that mystic region, which lies above, below,
or beyond the actual, may here meet and talk over the business of
their dreams."

"It is a noble hall," observed I.

"Yes," he replied.  "Yet we see but a small portion of the edifice.
In its upper stories are said to be apartments where the inhabitants
of earth may hold converse with those of the moon; and beneath our
feet are gloomy cells, which communicate with the infernal regions,
and where monsters and chimeras are kept in confinement and fed with
all unwholesomeness."

In niches and on pedestals around about the hall stood the statues
or busts of men who in every age have been rulers and demigods in
the realms of imagination and its kindred regions. The grand old
countenance of Homer; the shrunken and decrepit form but vivid face
of AEsop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild Ariosto; Rabelais's
smile of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of
Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for an
allegoric structure; the severe divinity of Milton; and Bunyan,
moulded of homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire,--were
those that chiefly attracted my eye.  Fielding, Richardson, and
Scott occupied conspicuous pedestals.  In an obscure and shadowy
niche was deposited the bust of our countryman, the author of Arthur
Mervyn.

"Besides these indestructible memorials of real genius," remarked my
companion, "each century has erected statues of its own ephemeral
favorites in wood."

"I observe a few crumbling relics of such," said I.  "But ever and
anon, I suppose, Oblivion comes with her huge broom and sweeps them
all from the marble floor.  But such will never be the fate of this
fine statue of Goethe."

"Nor of that next to it,--Emanuel Swedenborg," said he.  "Were ever
two men of transcendent imagination more unlike?"

In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the water
of which continually throws itself into new shapes and snatches the
most diversified lines from the stained atmosphere around.  It is
impossible to conceive what a strange vivacity is imparted to the
scene by the magic dance of this fountain, with its endless
transformations, in which the imaginative beholder may discern what
form he will.  The water is supposed by some to flow from the same
source as the Castalian spring, and is extolled by others as uniting
the virtues of the Fountain of Youth with those of many other
enchanted wells long celebrated in tale and song.  Having never
tasted it, I can bear no testimony to its quality.

"Did you ever drink this water?" I inquired of my friend.

"A few sips now and then," answered he.  "But there are men here who
make it their constant beverage,--or, at least, have the credit of
doing so.  In some instances it is known to have intoxicating
qualities."

"Pray let us look at these water-drinkers," said I.

So we passed among the fantastic pillars till we came to a spot
where a number of persons were clustered together in the light of
one of the great stained windows, which seemed to glorify the whole
group as well as the marble that they trod on.  Most of them were
men of broad foreheads, meditative countenances, and thoughtful,
inward eyes; yet it required but a trifle to summon up mirth,
peeping out from the very midst of grave and lofty musings.  Some
strode about, or leaned against the pillars of the hall, alone and
in silence; their faces wore a rapt expression, as if sweet music
were in the air around them, or as if their inmost souls were about
to float away in song.  One or two, perhaps, stole a glance at the
bystanders, to watch if their poetic absorption were observed.
Others stood talking in groups, with a liveliness of expression, a
ready smile, and a light, intellectual laughter, which showed how
rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing to and fro among them.

A few held higher converse, which caused their calm and melancholy
souls to beam moonlight from their eyes.  As I lingered near
them,--for I felt an inward attraction towards these men, as if the
sympathy of feeling, if not of genius, had united me to their
order,--my friend mentioned several of their names.  The world has
likewise heard those names; with some it has been familiar for
years; and others are daily making their way deeper into the
universal heart.

"Thank Heaven," observed I to my companion, as we passed to another
part of the hall, "we have done with this techy, wayward, shy, proud
unreasonable set of laurel-gatherers.  I love them in their works,
but have little desire to meet them elsewhere."

"You have adopted all old prejudice, I see," replied my friend, who
was familiar with most of these worthies, being himself a student of
poetry, and not without the poetic flame.  "But, so far as my
experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the social
qualities; and in this age there appears to be a fellow-feeling
among them which had not heretofore been developed.  As men, they
ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their fellow-men;
and as authors, they have thrown aside their proverbial jealousy,
and acknowledge a generous brotherhood."

"The world does not think so," answered I.  "An author is received
in general society pretty much as we honest citizens are in the Hall
of Fantasy.  We gaze at him as if he had no business among us, and
question whether he is fit for any of our pursuits."

"Then it is a very foolish question," said he.  "Now, here are a
class of men whom we may daily meet on 'Change.  Yet what poet in
the hall is more a fool of fancy than the sagest of them?"

He pointed to a number of persons, who, manifest as the fact was,
would have deemed it an insult to be told that they stood in the
Hall of Fantasy.  Their visages were traced into wrinkles and
furrows, each of which seemed the record of some actual experience
in life.  Their eyes had the shrewd, calculating glance which
detects so quickly and so surely all that it concerns a man of
business to know about the characters and purposes of his fellow-men.
Judging them as they stood, they might be honored and trusted
members of the Chamber of Commerce, who had found the genuine secret
of wealth and whose sagacity gave them the command of fortune.

There was a character of detail and matter of fact in their talk
which concealed the extravagance of its purport, insomuch that the
wildest schemes had the aspect of everyday realities.  Thus the
listener was not startled at the idea of cities to be built, as if
by magic, in the heart of pathless forests; and of streets to be
laid out where now the sea was tossing; and of mighty rivers to be
stayed in their courses in order to turn the machinery of a
cotton-mill.  It was only by an effort, and scarcely then, that the
mind convinced itself that such speculations were as much matter of
fantasy as the old dream of Eldorado, or as Mammon's Cave, or any
other vision of gold ever conjured up by the imagination of needy
poet or romantic adventurer.

"Upon my word," said I, "it is dangerous to listen to such dreamers
as these.  Their madness is contagious."

"Yes," said my friend, "because they mistake the Hall of Fantasy
for actual brick and mortar, and its purple atmosphere for
unsophisticated sunshine.  But the poet knows his whereabout, and
therefore is less likely to make a fool of himself in real life."

"Here again," observed I, as we advanced a little farther, "we see
another order of dreamers, peculiarly characteristic, too, of the
genius of our country."

These were the inventors of fantastic machines.  Models of their
contrivances were placed against some of the pillars of the hall,
and afforded good emblems of the result generally to be anticipated
from an attempt to reduce day-dreams to practice. The analogy may
hold in morals as well as physics; for instance, here was the model
of a railroad through the air and a tunnel under the sea.  Here was
a machine--stolen, I believe--for the distillation of heat from
moonshine; and another for the condensation of morning mist into
square blocks of granite, wherewith it was proposed to rebuild the
entire Hall of Fantasy. One man exhibited a sort of lens whereby he
had succeeded in making sunshine out of a lady's smile; and it was
his purpose wholly to irradiate the earth by means of this wonderful
invention.

"It is nothing new," said I; "for most of our sunshine comes from
woman's smile already."

"True," answered the inventor; "but my machine will secure a
constant supply for domestic use; whereas hitherto it has been very
precarious."

Another person had a scheme for fixing the reflections of objects in
a pool of water, and thus taking the most life-like portraits
imaginable; and the same gentleman demonstrated the practicability
of giving a permanent dye to ladies' dresses, in the gorgeous clouds
of sunset.  There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual motion, one
of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper editors and writers
of every description.  Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous
storm in a gum-elastic bag.  I could enumerate many more of these
Utopian inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is
to be found in the Patent Office at Washington.

Turning from the inventors we took a more general survey of the
inmates of the hall.  Many persons were present whose right of
entrance appeared to consist in some crotchet of the brain, which,
so long as it might operate, produced a change in their relation to
the actual world.  It is singular how very few there are who do not
occasionally gain admittance on such a score, either in abstracted
musings, or momentary thoughts, or bright anticipations, or vivid
remembrances; for even the actual becomes ideal, whether in hope or
memory, and beguiles the dreamer into the Hall of Fantasy.  Some
unfortunates make their whole abode and business here, and contract
habits which unfit them for all the real employments of life.
Others--but these are few--possess the faculty, in their occasional
visits, of discovering a pur