The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861

After no such lifeless fashion
Mine is woven. Golden sunbeams
Prisoned in its meshes, light gleams
From its shadowest recesses.
Tell me, spider, made you ever
Web so strong no knife could sever
Woven of a maiden's tresses?"

On the other side of the viny curtain, Anthrops discovered the entrance to a large cavern hollowed out in a rock. The cavern was carpeted with the softest moss of the most variegated shades, ranging from faintest green to a rich golden brown. The rocky walls were of considerable height, and curved gracefully around the ample space,—a woodland apartment. But the most remarkable feature in the grotto was a rose-colored cloud, that seemed to have been imprisoned in the farther end, and, in its futile efforts to escape, shifted perpetually into strange, fantastic figures. Now, the massive form of the Israelitish giant appeared lying at the feet of the Philistine damsel; anon, the kingly shoulders of the swift-footed Achilles towered helplessly above the heads of the island girls. The noble head of Marcus Antoninus bowed in disgraceful homage before his wife; the gaunt figure of the stern Florentine trembled at the footsteps of the light Beatrice; the sister of Honorius, from the throne of half the world, saluted the sister of Theodosius, grasping the sceptre of the other half in her slender fingers. Every instance of weak compliance with the whims, of devoted subjection to the power, of destructive attention to the caprices of women by men, since Eve ruined her lord with the fatal apple, was whimsically represented by the rapid configurations of this strange vapor.

Anthrops presently discovered Haguna half reclining on a raised moss-seat, and dreamily running her white fingers through her hair, which now fell unchecked to her feet. He had lost sight of her but a few minutes, yet in that short time a strange change had come over her. Perhaps it was because her rippling hair, which, slightly stirred by the faint air of the cavern, rose and fell around her in long undulations, made her appear as if floating in a golden brown haze. Perhaps it was the familiarity with which she had taken possession of the grotto, as if it had been a palace that she had expected, prepared for her reception. But for some reason she appeared a great way off,—no longer a simple maiden, involved with him in a woodland adventure, but a subtle enchantress, who, through all the seeming accidents of the day, had been pursuing a deep-laid plot, and now was awaiting its triumphant consummation. She did not at first notice Anthrops as he stood in curious astonishment in the doorway; but presently, looking up, she motioned him to another place beside herself.

"This is a pleasant place to rest in for a while before we rejoin our companions," she said; "we are fortunate in finding so pretty a spot."

The natural tone of her frank, girlish voice somewhat dissipated Anthrops's vague bewilderment, and he accepted the proffered seat at her side. He for the first time looked attentively at Haguna, as he had until now been gazing at the shifting diorama behind her. He noticed, to his surprise, a number of bright shining points, somewhat like stars, glistening in her hair, and with some hesitation inquired their nature. Haguna laughed, a low musical laugh, yet with an indescribable impersonality in it,—as if a spring brook had just then leaped over a little hill, and were laughing mockingly to itself at its exploit.

"They are souls," she said.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Anthrops; "are souls no bigger than that?"

"How do you know how large they are?" laughed Haguna, beginning to weave her hair into a curiously intricate braid. "These are but the vital germs of souls; but I hold them bound as surely by imprisoning these."

"But surely every soul is not so weak; all cannot be so cruelly imprisoned."

Again she laughed, that strange laugh.

"Strong and weak are merely relative terms. There is nothing you know of so strong that it may not yield to a stronger, and anything can be captured that is once well laid hold of. I will sing you a song by which you may learn some of the ways in which other things beside souls are caught."

Still continuing her busy weaving, Haguna began to sing. Except the song she had hummed in the woods that afternoon, he had never heard her voice but in speaking, and was astonished at its richness and power; yet it was a simple chant she sang, that seemed to follow the gliding motion of her fingers.

"Running waters swiftly flowing,
On the banks fair lilies growing
Watch the dancing sunbeams quiver,
Watch their faces in the river.
Round their long roots, in and out,
The supple river winds about,—
Wily, oily, deep designing,
Their foundations undermining.
Fall the lilies in the river,
Smoothly glides the stream forever."

The subtle song crept into Anthrops's brain, and seemed to spin a web over it, which, though of lightest gossamer, confined him helplessly in its meshes. Again she sang:—

"From the swamp the mist is creeping;
Fly the startled sunbeams weeping,
Up the mountain feebly flying,
Paling, waning, fainting, dying.
All their cheerful work undoing,
Crawls the cruel mist pursuing.
Shrouded in a purple dimness,
Quenched the sunlight is in shadow;
Over hill and wood and meadow
Broads the mist in sullen grimness."

She had already woven a great deal of her shining hair into a curious braid, so broad and intricate as to be almost a golden web. A strange fascination held Anthrops spell-bound; it was as if her song were weaving her web, and her fingers chanting her song, and as if both song and web were made of the wavering cloud that still shifted into endless dioramas. Once more she sang:—

"Drop by drop the charmed ear tingling,
Rills of music intermingling,
Murmuring in their mazy winding,
All the steeped senses blinding,
Their intricate courses wending,
Closer still the streams are blending.
Down the rapid channel rushing,
Floods of melody are gushing;
Flush the tender rills with gladness,
Drown the listener in sweet madness.
Onward sweeps the eddying singing,
Ever new enchantment bringing.
Break the bubbles on the river,
Faints the wearied sound in darkness;
But, as one that always hearkens,
Floats the charmed soul forever."

As she finished the song, she arose, and threw over the youth the web of her fatal hair. The charmed song had so incorporated itself with the odorous air of the cavern, that every breath he drew seemed to be laden with the subtle music. It oppressed, stifled him; he strove in vain to escape its influence; and as he felt the soft hair brush his cheek, he swooned upon the ground.

The philosopher's study was a very different place from the green wood,—perched up, as it was, on the summit of a bare, bleak mountain. The room was fitted up with the frugality demanded by philosophic indifference to luxury, and the abundance necessitated by a wide range of study. The walls were hung with a number of pictures, in whose subjects an observer might detect a remarkable similarity. A satirical pencil had been engaged in depicting some of the most striking instances of successful manly resistance to female tyranny, of manly contempt for feminine weakness, of manly endurance of woman-inflicted injury. The unfortunate Longinus turned with contemptuous pity from the trembling Zenobia; the valiant Thomas Aquinas hurled his protesting firebrand against the too charming interruption of his scholastic pursuits; the redoubtable Conqueror beat his rebellious sweetheart into matrimony. The flickering light of a wood fire served not merely to illuminate the actual portraits, but almost to discover the sarcastic face of the anonymous artist, smiling in triumph from the background. On the hearth in front of the fire stood the philosopher in earnest conversation with a venerable friend.

"I am provoked beyond measure," exclaimed our friend, in an exceedingly vexed tone. "So much as I had hoped from the boy,—that he, too, could not keep from the silly snare! It is shameful, abominable;—she is always in my way, upsetting all my plans, interfering with everything I undertake. Would you believe it? at the death of one of her sisters, the fools were not content with giving her a funeral good enough for a man, but they must place her hair in the sky for a constellation!"

"That was indeed an insult to Orion," said his sympathizing friend, soothingly.

"My hands are absolutely tied," continued the irate philosopher. "I bestow upon the boys the most careful education, enlarge their minds by the study of the history and destiny of man, of the world, of the stellar system, till I may hope that in the contemplation of the vast universe they have lost their little prejudices and personal preferences. I strengthen their judgment, assiduously exercise their powers of ratiocination, fortify their minds with philosophy, train them to habits of accuracy, patience, and perseverance by long scientific research; and at the moment when I ought to find them useful as philosophers, as seekers after eternal Truth, as lovers of imperishable Wisdom, they degenerate into seekers after eyes and hair and cheeks, and I know not what nonsense, lovers of frail, perishable women, who appear to preserve an astonishing longevity on purpose to plague and thwart rational people."

His friend pondered deeply upon the vexatious problem.

"You say," he remarked, "that this unfortunate attraction exists in spite of philosophical training,—that it is exerted towards the antipodes of their previous associations; that, as they have been trained to yield only to well-grounded syllogisms, it is the illogical mode of assault that vanquishes them unguarded; that their reasonable minds have nothing to say to such, perfectly unreasonable fascinations; that, in short, the enemy succeeds by supplying a vacuum, as the walls of Visibis gave way under the pressure of the dammed-up river?"

"Alas, friend, your observations are too true!"

"Then my way becomes clearer. It surely cannot be unknown to you, sagest of students, that in physical science we oppose a plenum to a vacuum, in medicine we supply a deficiency of saline secretions by the common expedient of salt. Wherefore not apply our knowledge painfully gleaned from lower science to the study of these more complicated phenomena? The coward who would flee the fire of the enemy may be kept at his post by the equal dread of death from his commander. Open a double fire upon these wayward youths. Make the Barbarians enlist in the Roman legions. In short, teach Haguna and the others philosophy. There will then no longer be an opposing force of entirely different nature, but merely an influence of the same kind as he has been accustomed to, though vastly inferior in power."

The philosopher started,—the idea was so new to him.

"But, my friend," he urged, doubtfully, "do you not remember, that, after the Romans had painfully learnt ship-building from the Carthaginians, they vanquished them with their own weapons? Might not some such danger be apprehended in this case?"

His companion reddened with indignation, then spoke in a tone of mildly severe rebuke.

"Are the girls Romans? Do you suppose that in ship-building the silly little things would ever advance beyond scows? We shall have the double advantage of the plenum, by their minds being turned in the same direction as those of our students,—and of the defeat and shipwreck, through fighting in unseaworthy vessels."

"I have another idea also," observed the philosopher. "Even supposing, as I must confess there seems to me a possibility, that in a philosophical tournament, or trial of wits, they should occasionally come off victorious," (his friend shook his head angrily,) "the effect of separation that we desire would still be obtained. Haguna would no longer be able to entangle silly boys in her treacherous hair. Your suggestion is good; I will act upon it."