Never Bet the Devil Your Head

A Tale With a Moral. "_CON tal que las costumbres de un autor_,"
says Don Thomas de las Torres,
in the preface to his "Amatory Poems" _"sean puras y castas, importo muy
poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras"_ -- meaning, in plain
English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure personally, it
signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We presume that Don
Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be a clever thing,
too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there until his "Amatory
Poems" get out of print, or are laid definitely upon the shelf through
lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and, what is more to
the purpose, the critics have discovered that every fiction has. Philip
Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon the
"Batrachomyomachia," and proved that the poet's object was to excite a
distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that
the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and
drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by
Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther;
by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch.
Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a
hidden meaning in "The Antediluvians," a parable in Powhatan," new views
in "Cock Robin," and transcendentalism in "Hop O' My Thumb." In short, it
has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound
design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for
example, need have no care of his moral. It is there -- that is to say, it
is somewhere -- and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves.
When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all
that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the "Dial," or the
"Down-Easter," together with all that he ought to have intended, and the
rest that he clearly meant to intend: -- so that it will all come very
straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses -- that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and develop my morals: -- that is the secret. By and by
the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make them ashamed of their
stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution -- by way of
mitigating the accusations against me -- I offer the sad history appended,
-- a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question whatever,
since he