A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

(1850)

DURING the fall of the year 1827, while residing near
Charlottesville, Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of Mr.
Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every
respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I found
it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his physical
relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory account.
Whence he came, I never ascertained. Even about his age -- although I
call him a young gentleman -- there was something which perplexed me
in no little degree. He certainly seemed young -- and he made a point
of speaking about his youth -- yet there were moments when I should
have had little trouble in imagining him a hundred years of age. But
in no regard was he more peculiar than in his personal appearance. He
was singularly tall and thin. He stooped much. His limbs were
exceedingly long and emaciated. His forehead was broad and low. His
complexion was absolutely bloodless. His mouth was large and
flexible, and his teeth were more wildly uneven, although sound, than
I had ever before seen teeth in a human head. The expression of his
smile, however, was by no means unpleasing, as might be supposed; but
it had no variation whatever. It was one of profound melancholy -- of
a phaseless and unceasing gloom. His eyes were abnormally large, and
round like those of a cat. The pupils, too, upon any accession or
diminution of light, underwent contraction or dilation, just such as
is observed in the feline tribe. In moments of excitement the orbs
grew bright to a degree almost inconceivable; seeming to emit
luminous rays, not of a reflected but of an intrinsic lustre, as does
a candle or the sun; yet their ordinary condition was so totally
vapid, filmy, and dull as to convey the idea of the eyes of a
long-interred corpse.

These peculiarities of person appeared to cause him much annoyance,
and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of half
explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first heard it,
impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew accustomed to it,
and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his design rather to
insinuate than directly to assert that, physically, he had not always
been what he was -- that a long series of neuralgic attacks had
reduced him from a condition of more than usual personal beauty, to
that which I saw. For many years past he had been attended by a
physician, named Templeton -- an old gentleman, perhaps seventy years
of age -- whom he had first encountered at Saratoga, and from whose
attention, while there, he either received, or fancied that he
received, great benefit. The result was that Bedloe, who was wealthy,
had made an arrangement with Dr.