# The Knickerbocker/Volume 1/Number 1/Introduction

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The Knickerbocker.
Vol. I.
JANUARY, 1833.
No. I.
ISBECOMING as it may be, courteous reader, to rush at once into thy presence and pour out our gratulations at meeting thee here, there is still something so cordial on the occasion, that for the life of us we cannot begin by making thy acquaintance in cold and formal phrase. Dost thou observe how smilingly the sun comes in yonder window and plays upon the extended sheet, over which that ancient figure is stooping? even so do the friendly looks which thou now bendest over our page, cheer our soul with their sunny influence. There is, too, a free and confiding expression in thy countenance, which at once banishes all distrust from our bosom; all those doubts and misgivings, which we could not but indulge in seeking the intimacy. We feel as if we had known thee for years, and the very chambers of our heart open of themselves as to an old acquaintance, who has the ​privilege of entrance without knocking. We cannot, we cannot, dear reader, while our heart is thus warming toward thee, enter upon formal explanations, or draw up here a frigid business-like agreement, as to the footing we are hereafter to be upon together. Let our publishers and the public settle those musty matters between them, while we two, quietly, after a simple fashion, talk over our affairs as if no one else were by.
And first, let us tell thee that as regards the little sketch overleaf, which the uninitiated will view with indifference, or perhaps overlook entirely, there is a mystery about it which concerns both of us mightily. Thou must know then that one day, not a great while since, as we were musing in our study upon the best method of first introducing ourselves to thy acquaintance, a circumstance, or rather a train of circumstances—a scene—occurred, so singular, if not supernatural, that we almost hesitate in this unbelieving age to recount it even to thee. As the cause of truth, however, could never be advanced did every one shrink from relating the facts that occur under his individual observation, merely because they do not fall within the train of common events, we will even detail here those strange things which have lately come within the experience of our own senses; leaving it for those idle carpers and arrant infidels, the critics and philosophers, to make what they can of this exposure of mysterious doings, shouldst thou, gentle reader, by any accident betray to such people the confidence that is here unreservedly reposed in thee.
It was in the afternoon, just before sunset, during one of those delicious 'Indian-summer' days, the peculiar boast of our climate, of which, the autumn just passed, was more than usually bountiful, that while, as we have mentioned, meditating alone in our study upon the prospects of the new Maga- zine, these marvelous occurrences took place. The golden- hued smoke of our juelta was rising before our line of vision and mellowing each object, like the warm atmosphere that gives such rich repose to the pictures of Claude, when, as we watched its light flakes as they floated through the open window, and mingled with the silver haze without, they seemed after a while, instead of dissipating themselves in their kindred atmosphere, to form gradually into a murky cloud, which at last filled the whole apartment. This was indeed singular; but so completely lost were we in idle reverie, that it did not strike us at the moment as strange, nor at all prepare us for the ​phenomena that followed its disappearance, and gradually made us conscious that a mysterious influence prevailed in the room where we were sitting. By degrees the gaudy paper hangings around us faded into dullness, and then, while their gay colours were darkening into one uniform shade of brown, slowly in their stead panels of burnished oak grew out upon the walls, and glistened in the setting sun. And now each veined spot upon the mantelpiece of variegated marble, became gradually larger and more distinct in form and color, till every one at last assuming a rectangular shape, settled into a separate porcelain tile of smoky blue, like those one may still see ornamenting the fire-place in our old Dutch edifices. The disappearance of the grate we did not note; but it was gone, and there certainly was sufficient room where it had stood to swallow up a dozen between those yawning jams.
The most striking metamorphosis, however, was that which the furniture underwent. The slender maple chairs became gradually bloated and dropsical in their appearance, until they swelled at last into a most antiquated and preposterous size. Their backs became broad and crooked, and from their sides huge arms unfolded, while hideous claws protruded from the small round knobs on which they formerly rested, and slowly sprawled upon the floor; and next, the perforated cane work which erst formed their bottoms, after swimming thick before our eyes for a moment, became gradually opaque, and then plumped up into fat and portly cushions. Nor was this all; the very table upon which our elbow rested while watching the mysterious change going forward around us, was not exempt from its influence: sensibly could we perceive—and yet not so abruptly as to startle us—sensibly could we feel its velvet cover chilling and hardening and smoothing beneath our pressure into a slab of polished marble, while the one stout central supporter, severed into four slender legs, tattooed with quaint devices, each of which quietly slipped into a socket prepared for it under the carved head of a lion that grinned at either corner.
But the most remarkable of all amid these miraculous doings remains yet to be mentioned; our own figure reflected in the mirror opposite, seemed to share the general change, and after vainly trying to recognize its lineaments in those that met our gaze, we at length observed, upon looking more narrowly, that the frame of the mirror had disappeared. The mirror itself was gone, and instead of being a reflection ​of ourselves, it was another figure, an actual being, though not of this world, that now sate opposite to us.
Thou believest not perhaps in spirits, reader—thou believest not that the departed dead may escape from the cerements of the sepulchre, and in their bodily forms revisit the warm world again! And yet why not? The persuasion that such things be, seems almost instinctive in our nature; our earliest recollections are those of mystic fears, and the very reason upon which in after life we rely for their subjugation, cannot withstand the mass of evidence to the fact of apparitions having been witnessed in every age of the world. Are there not moments when the least imaginative mind, the most sceptical bosom, shudders with the apprehension of a forced communion with beings of the other world? And what, unless the prompting of some viewless spirit, that with chilling influence hovers near—what is this dim dread, this mystic fear, this vague belief that such things are, but the whispering of the soul to the senses of suggestions that come to it from heaven itself? Banish then, thinking reader, that sneer of doubt from thy features. We know that there is much to stagger thy faith in what we are now revealing; but may we entirely forfeit thy confidence in our truth, if what we have just related be not as veritable a part of our narrative as any that hath preceded it. We pray thee, reader, withdraw not yet thy confidence, but list while we proceed in this singular disclosure.
Well, there sat the phantom; and here sat we, with only the breadth of the table between us. Its position was much the same as ours, and when it first assumed a determined shape to our sight—that of a little old man clad in ancient apparel—it was gazing intently upon some loose sheets before it. It was then that a complete though cursory examination of its features, dispelled at once our rising horror at thus confronting an apparition. Benevolence was their predominant expression, and though a few satirical lines about the mouth a little disputed its ascendency, yet their effect was wholly lost upon us when the phantom, slowly raising its head, gave an opportunity for its mild blue eyes and placid brow to produce their full impression. There was, too, something so re-assuring, so almost parental, in the manner of this venerable being, when first addressing us, that, colored as it was by a certain jocoseness, our mind became collected at once, and we listened, nay, replied to the words of the spectre with a composure, for which, now that the singular scene has passed, we ​are wholly unable to account. Perhaps we ought to add that the old gentleman, who was dressed in a coat of rusty black, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a three cornered beaver, had a certain briskness in his appearance, that seemed almost incompatible with the gloomy sternness of an apparition: added to which we had an internal conviction the moment we saw him, that somewhere, at sometime, certainly we had seen the same individual before, or else had heard his appearance so vividly described by others, that it had long settled in memory like that of an old acquaintance.
"My son," said the sage looking old gentleman, revealing as he raised his little cocked hat from his head a few gray hairs, plaited and clubbed behind, "what my son can have tempted thee, with rash and presumptuous hand, to essay retrieving this ancient city from the degeneracy into which it has been gradually lapsing, ever since it passed from under the rule of its ancient Dutch dynasty? The dapper little town of those days has bloated into a big metropolis, and the change like that of a bustling tapster into a burly landlord hath been marvelously for the worse. We have lost in serviceableness what we have gained in importance, and to my mind things have come to such a pass that the town, like an overgrown younker as it is, having become too big for its jerkin, it well becometh some one to look after it occasionally and see, at least, that though irreclaimable in itself, it doth not expose its extravagances too much to the neighbors. But what, young sir, can have tempted thee to assume an office for which thou art not in any way qualified, seeing that since I myself cannot in my fleshly form undertake the office of beadle, there lacketh some of those arch wags and right merry spirits who used, in Salmagundi, to cudgel the town so good humoredly into better ways? And why hast thou presumed, without the permission of my rightful and only heir, to assume a name—(and here the person of the little gentleman dilated into ten-fold dignity, while he replaced his rusty beaver on his head, and cocked it over the right eye after a most impressive fashion)—a name, young mortal, which, as that of a lofty and veritable annalist, is now embalmed with those of Thucydides and Xenophon, Livy, Tacitus and Polybius, Diodorus, and Aboul Hassan Aly the son of Alkhan, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus!"
Though we had surmised before in whose presence we were, and felt the divinity of that presence—though every incident ​that preceded this interview had prepared us for something of high and solemn import to follow, and though the opening of the audience had left us nothing to divine respecting the being that thus deigned to accord it, still, when we thus found ourselves beyond all doubt in the actual presence of the great Historian of New-York, the Dutch Herodotus, (as in compliment to the Greek annalist he has been called,) so overcome, so overwhelmed were we with the momentousness of the occasion, that the few incoherent sentences which first escaped us in reply to his address passed from our memory as soon as they were uttered, and we have only now a general impression of the part we took at the opening of this singular conference.
After stating to the sage that he had misconceived our design, in thinking we meditated any thing so presumptuous as supplying his place, as the quondam guardian of his favorite city, and that we had only assumed his name as good catholics when they take the cowl sometimes adopt that of their tutelar saint, we briefly mentioned those details of our design, with which the reader is already sufficiently acquainted from the prospectus, and then went on to observe:—That we well knew our publication must, at starting, owe its chief value and patronage to that pride of citizenship, widely distinct from a narrow cockney spirit, which, though latent, was still strong among the townsmen of the immortal Diedrich; but, that, though confidently relying upon this genial feeling, as the fulcrum of our first endeavors, it was upon broader and more general grounds we placed our hopes of final success. For as the rest of the country naturally looked to this metropolis for the mart of intelligence, as well as that of business, each organ that aided the emanation of literature hence, would tend also to concentrate it here, and—while our pages were open to the contribution of talent generally, when presented in a concise and animated form, provided only that sectarian discussion and party politics were not ingredients—we therefore expected to enlist ability, and consequently patronage, from every part of the country.
And much else did we add to the same purpose, which, dull and uninteresting as it is to the reader, the illustrious shade seemed to take in very good part, and even listen to in a manner highly flattering to us. After readily forgiving us the liberty taken with his name, in consideration of our having restored it to its ancient spelling, a little ​matter, but which in fact tickled him mightily, especially when we informed him that it was in consequence of a request officially preferred by the Burgomasters of the ancient city of Albany, the Historian pursued his remarks in a sly vein of banter, that showed his joking propensities had survived even in the grave. The subdued tone of quiet humor in which they were uttered, however, is lost entirely, when we attempt to transfer what he said to paper.
"It is well, Mr. Editor, as I suppose it now becometh me to call thee; it is well for this inexperienced country that there are sober ones, who, like thyself, come forward, and taking the young and frisky public under their wing, thereby prevent its getting into those manifold scrapes to which the prevailing incontinence of scribbling would otherwise expose it. For in our reasoning land, so madly do people go together by the ears, upon questions of whatever concernment, that were it not for publications such as thine, which operate as safety-valves to that grand boiler, society, the ways of literature, like those of politics, would become as dangerous as the deck of a high-pressure steamboat, and wild theories and conflicting opinions would be constantly generating and exploding in quartos and octavos, instead of, as now, oozing away harmlessly through the medium of periodicals. Again, there is something right valiant in thy thus taking the bull of opinion by the horns, something exceeding magnanimous in thus assuming the direction of public taste, in thus"—
"You overrate—you mistake, venerable sir," interrupted we in a subdued voice of respect, "the nature of our undertaking, and the responsibility of the task we are about to assume. We purpose but to act as the usher of others into the presence of the public, and to form one of the crowd only when we appear ourselves. The object of our Magazine is to represent life and letters as existing here, not to assume their regulation; to call out talent, not to supply it ourselves. The chief burthen of the undertaking must indeed, in any event, rest upon these shoulders, and they will of course sink under it, should any large portion of the aid expected be not realized. But the cordial alacrity with which it has been proffered, would render a doubt of receiving it as inexcusable, as if, after the liberal and spontaneous patronage of the public at the very outset of our undertaking, we should have misgivings of the continuance of their favour."
​"Didst thou never read, my son," said the ancient, shaking his head, "of a usage they have in the Nicobar islands, when they wish to get rid of a restless spirit, of provisioning a little raft for a few days, towing it out to sea, and turning the frail craft with its solitary voyager adrift to perish? If haply thou hast, why may we not apprehend, while launching here thy shallop so boldly from the shore, lest the alacrity and liberality with which it has been fitted out and started upon this adventurous voyage, be a Nicobar stratagem to get rid of thee forever?"
"We are indeed, sir, at some loss to account for the unexpected and undeserved confidence with which our design hath been seconded the moment it became public; but the fate of a perturbed spirit could hardly be intended for so quiet a one as ours, nor do we know any reason why our civilized and enlighted community should adopt the usages of a simple-minded and barbarous people, seeing that they can neither affect the price of stocks, nor have any political bearing whatsoever. Then, too, as for those already engaged to assist us, their kind offices are alone a warrant of success. There are names, not quite unknown, nor known disadvantageously, whose influence and assistance have been already most courteously tendered; but high as are our expectations from these, they are by no means our principal dependance. Such good friends as they and the public will always meet with mutual satisfaction, and we shall be happy to be the means of bringing them more frequently together—"
"Though neither side has special need of you as the medium of communication," ejaculated the ancient.
"True! venerable sir, but there is another class, a most numerous class, and one that in its unions would be mighty, who have need of us (or of some one in our place) and of the public, and the public and we have need of them. It is the class of hidden capacities—of scattered, obscure, and disunited talents—and our chiefest task will be to gather in some of these from their manifold dispersion; and to invent, if possible, some new divining rod, wherewith to bring out upon the surface of our society, the thousand springs of its own fresh and latent talent."
"But why," interrupted the sage, "should such magical means be requisite to elicit ability. Doth not talent, as in my day, become soon conspicuous, and as the most vigorous sap- lings of the forest, shoot above their fellows, and seek the ​sky, spring toward the light of favor of its own accord? That he who is conscious of his own acquirements, desires the fame of possessing them, hath been proverbial since the time of Persius, and in my day"—
"Pardon me, oh learned phantom, in thy in thy day pedantry was not the bug-bear which it now is; though even then, genius was held synonimous with folly, and to be suspected of being a poet did as now seriously affect one's success in any respectable business. But whether it is owing to these considerations, or others that may be mentioned, it is only by some extraordinary powers of quest and inquisition, that we can find out people among whom we are daily and hourly conversant. We meet in the busy and in the gay world upon such common-place grounds—we have so many matters of fact or indifferent nothings, which, according to the requisitions of society must be more or less discussed, that the brief moments pass in the interchange of conversational currency, while our real coin grows rusty in our pockets. And yet among the cultivated classes there are unsuspected powers, in the recesses, in the eddies of our society, which might be gathered to a mighty stream that should tend with a general effect toward a general object, and should attain it in the general discovery and consequent increase of its own effective energies."
"Thou speakest, my son, under the influence of vivid feelings and flattering hopes and prospects. Much doth it fear me lest thou confidest too much in these hidden and uncertain resources. Bethink thee, should they fail, where but upon thy rash head will the blame and the burthen fall. Abandon then thy design, while there is time to avail thyself of the counsel conveyed in the Chinese proverb—'it is easier to mount a tiger than to get off his back when once seated.'"
"Allow us to think otherwise and to indulge the belief, that if we do our part, 'the blame,' in case of failure, will only, among fair-judging people, fall where it is justly due. And for 'the burthen,' as we sanguinely think it will, so do we know that it must, be divided by others. The time has long gone by, at least in the civilized world, when the might of one man's hand could govern, or the abundance of one man's intellect could nourish the strength and thoughts of many. Literature is tending like civil polity to republicanism and distribution: to a distribution which enriches the many without impoverishing the few, but which makes the conferring of acceptable gifts on the former hourly more difficult; for though the ​riches of the giver are not diminished, though they are indeed increased, yet the poverty of the receivers is diminished in a more than like proportion. Their taste is become more fastidious; their curiosity less eager; and if he who would cater for them be deficient in variety and novelty, they discharge the unprofitable servant and take an independent stand upon their own resources. We say their own resources, for we mean the resources of the general mind, the many hoarded individual stores which should be general and public"—
"But which too often," observed the sage, "are buried in the bosom of their miser-like owners, as if mind as well as money did not owe its chief value to active circulation; leaving it too for others to dig as much at random for their treasures, as those industrious vagrants whose researches after 'Captain Kidd's money,' have disturbed every mound upon the coast, and even troubled the repose of my own bones."
"Yet these," we resumed, "these private accumulations of the general wealth are the only coffers adequate to the supply of an enlightened and still advancing community, and upon these shall we repose, trusting fully to the active principle of the present age for the effect—variety of design, and what the political economist calls 'division of labor.' There is probably no man living who cannot do something well, and the man of our age who has caused the greatest things to be done, was he who possessed a power, that seemed like inspiration, of divining and putting into action the talents of those who were most capable of effecting his purposes. That was his arm of conquest and the staff of his strength, and there is none to wield it after him. But still the example of his success is there to prompt us, as far as we may, to fashion our little weapons in our narrower sphere upon the art he has revealed to us."
"Aye, indeed I have heard much of that great captain's doings, even in those shadowy realms, where many a lofty soul like his moves in the dim crowd of disembodied spirits, undistinguished from those who in life would have quailed beneath their glance. But touching those weapons, my son, of which thou spakest but now, surely thou meanest not to encourage the vile spirit of satire in thy publication."
"It was but metaphorically we used the term; nor do we mean that our work shall be the vehicle of bitterness or malice in any shape; yet, while we well know that the prevailing fondness for speaking with levity on the gravest subjects, with ridicule of the noblest sentiments, and be-littling every thing ​that is great and glorious, has done incalculable mischief, not only in leveling weak minds to one mean standard, but in chilling the fervid aspirations of loftier ones, repressing wholesome enthusiasm, and even frittering away manly independence and force of character—while we duly appreciate this malign influence, and shall be on the watch to guard against it,—we do not mean the less on that account to spare the lash of satire where its discipline is required. Like all people, however sensible, our ingenious countrymen have yet their follies and extravagances. And you must know, immortal sir, that, promising as matters were in your day, the moment your influence over them was withdrawn, they relapsed into a worse condition than formerly. In manners, for instance, it is still the prevailing weakness to adopt the absurdities of others, instead, if such things must be had, of originating them for ourselves. In literature, young, fresh, and unhacknied as we are, we are already, by some strange fatuity, grievously given to twaddle; and—where one has a right to look for that wildness and exuberance, that almost savageness of invention, which so much in the German literature requires training and repression, while it betrays all the richness and vigour of a new mental soil—we find, to the neglect of our own few original models, a dotard fondness, a sickly longing for all the absurd trash of driveling sentimentality and pseudo-fashion, with which the shelves of our circulating libraries are filled from the London press. The taste, thus engendered, acts and re-acts in a thousand ways, till our writings and our approval of writings are both second-hand. We imitate the most flimsy productions which appear abroad, and then approve of these imitations as 'American,' while critics, afraid to be accused of a want of patriotism, sanction where they despise, and approve when they ought to condemn. But the mischief extends still further. Where originality is not required, every one may become a writer. The names of people, clever enough in their way, but by no means more deserving of distinction than hundreds of others equally accomplished, are trumpeted abroad with those of which the country has most reason to be proud, and our national standard of merit is brought into disgrace by having these raw conscripts reviewed side by side with the few tried warriors, who alone we are willing should challenge European criticism, as the champions of our new literature. Now, sir, dangerous as the attempt may be, and difficult as its execution necessarily is, we design in in this publication to assume ​and sustain a system of rigid and uncompromising criticism, unbiassed by any feeling of national prejudice, any consideration of personal popularity, by the partiality of private circles, or the favor of general society. It shall also be our aim, when recommending works of merit, to exercise as much discrimination as as possible, in so relatively estimating and classing them, that injustice may not be done to those of rare merit, by sharing the praise, which is only their due, with writings that have a feebler claim to favor. And this in defiance of the economical custom of having but one standard of praise amongst us, and dubbing every clever writer 'a Bryant,' or 'an Irving.'"
We know not whether the last word, when it escaped our lips, operated suddenly like the presence of a talisman upon the enchanted objects around us; or whether the spell had been gradually breaking, and while, with our eyes cast upon the table, we were thus tasking the indulgence of our illustrious hearer with these egotistical details, details, he had slipped away, and withdrawn with him the mystic influence that so unaccountably changed the aspect of every thing around him. But upon looking up, as usual, in the pauses of our conversation, for his customary nod of encouragement to proceed, those never to be forgotten features were no longer there. The phantom-guest had gone more mysteriously even than he came. His place—his chair—was vacant. His chair?—it was no longer his chair. What! could that meagre, miserable, spindle-shanked thing, have ever supported a form of his dignity? Could—but how did he withdraw? Through a carved panel, as is the wont of ordinary ghosts? There was none there—the sombre shining oak had again given place to tawdry paper. Did he take the favorite road of his patron, St. Nicholas, and vanish up the chimney? Alas! that noble fire-place was gone, and a patent sweep alone could perforate the cramped vent of the narrow grate by which it was superseded. Through the window? Who ever heard of a spectre passing out of a window? No—sufficient for us that he was gone—gone entirely—gone we fear forever: and so completely had each object around us recovered its vulgar every day appearance, that we might, without much difficulty, have convinced ourselves that the whole affair was but a dream, if not some grosser illusion—such as is said to assail the waking senses of persons of a melancholy temperament, living much in retirement—but that, upon examining the apartment for some trace ​of what had occurred, a highly finished miniature portrait caught our view, as lying upon the table, its animated eye seemed almost to flash from the ivory, through the gathering gloom of twilight. It was the original of the bold engraving which the reader has already seen upon the cover of the Magazine, though he could hardly have suspected, while marking the knightly mien of that lion-faced warrior, that he beheld an authentic likeness of one whom the hand of genius has invested with associations any thing but romantic. Upon comparing the portrait which fell so strangely into our possession, with the other original of PETER STUYVERSANT that has long, among those of the ancient governors of New-York, graced the gallery of the City Hall, the exact resemblance was at once acknowledged by every one present upon the occasion; and it will be ever a source of deep regret to us, that almost immediately after our friend WIER had transferred its lineaments to the wood of the engraver, this valuable picture mysteriously became missing, and can since then be no where found. The same admirable artist, however, has made all the amends in his power, for any possible neglect of his in guarding the treasure, by immortalizing with his pencil the scene in which it was discovered. Not a feature of which, excepting the table, which by some oversight presents the same appearance in the picture as does that upon which we are now writing, has escaped him in the finished painting, from which—with the omission of a figure representing our part in the conference—the bold sketch prefixed to this account was copied.
And now we would, if not humbly, yet sincerely and earnestly, ask the reader's pardon, for engrossing so much of his attention about our own particular matters upon so brief an acquaintance; but after thinking long upon the best method of having a frank and full exposition of the footing we are hereafter to be upon, we determined that there was nothing like taking him apart into our study, and talking over all our business preliminaries at once, leaving it for future occasions to develope our mutual powers of entertainment. Once having him to ourselves, however, we could not for the life of us help imparting an event among the most striking in our life, and which unquestionably has some mysterious and important connection with the future success of this Magazine. Besides, the affair must sooner or later have taken wind in some shape or another, when, if those wayward wags, the ​newspaper editors, had got hold of it, no one can say in what form it might first have reached the reader's ear.
No! if there be an apology due, it is to thee only, lady reader; but as this is the first occasion when we were ever tête-a-tête with one so beautiful, without sooner manifesting our appreciation of such good fortune, so, when we promise that it is the last when the presence of thy charms shall be for a moment forgotten, we hope to be forgiven. To thee, fair and gentle one, shall we delight here often to address ourselves. For thee shall the realms of taste and invention be ransacked, and many a gem of mind be garnered here. For thee shall wit and whim and fancy revel, and austere learning move in lively measure; proud science throw her pompous robes aside, and sober truth herself be gaily dressed in fiction. And may each impression ever made upon the leaves of thy life's volume, spring from hearts as warm for thy welfare, be traced by hands as true in thy service, as those that will toil for thy entertainment in the pages of The Knickerbacker.