textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/POE/poe-never-562.txt

                                      1850

                         NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD

                              A Tale With a Moral

                               by Edgar Allan Poe

  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 who runs may read it in the
large capitals which form the title of the tale. I should have
credit for this arrangement- a far wiser one than that of La
Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be conveyed until
the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.

  Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables,
and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction- even if
the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my
design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He
was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he died;
but he himself was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a
personal defect in his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging
him while an infant- for duties to her well- regulated mind were
always pleasures, and babies, like tough steaks, or the modern Greek
olive trees, are invariably the better for beating- but, poor woman!
she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child flogged
left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from
right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If
each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it
follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of
wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and,
even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in
my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day
when he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one
might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been
produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could
stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and,
uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin.

  The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months
of age he used to get into such passions that he was unable to
articulate. At six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At
seven months he was in the constant habit of catching and kissing
the female babies. At eight months he peremptorily refused to put
his signature to the Temperance pledge. Thus he went on increasing
in iniquity, month after month, until, at the close of the first year,
he not only insisted upon wearing moustaches, but had contracted a
propensity for cursing and swearing, and for backing his assertions by
bets.

  Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I
had predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had
"grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength," so that,
when he came to be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without
interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually
laid wagers- no. I will do my friend the justice to say that he
would as soon have laid eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula-
nothing more. His expressions on this head had no meaning attached
to them whatever. They were simple if not altogether innocent
expletives- imaginative phrases wherewith to round off a sentence.
When he said "I'll bet you so and so," nobody ever thought of taking
him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty to put him
down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a vulgar
one- this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by
society- here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act of
Congress- here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie. I
remonstrated- but to no purpose. I demonstrated- in vain. I entreated-
he smiled. I implored- he laughed. I preached- he sneered. I
threatened- he swore. I kicked him- he called for the police. I pulled
his nose- he blew it, and offered to bet the Devil his head that I
would not venture to try that experiment again.

  Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of
Dammit's mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and
this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about
betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that
I ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as "I'll bet
you a dollar." It was usually "I'll bet you what you please," or "I'll
bet you what you dare," or "I'll bet you a trifle," or else, more
significantly still, "I'll bet the Devil my head."

  This latter form seemed to please him best;- perhaps because it
involved the least risk; for Dammit had become excessively
parsimonious. Had any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus
his loss would have been small too. But these are my own reflections
and I am by no means sure that I am right in attributing them to
him. At all events the phrase in question grew daily in favor,
notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man betting his brains like
bank-notes:- but this was a point which my friend's perversity of
disposition would not permit him to comprehend. In the end, he
abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to "I'll bet
the Devil my head," with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of devotion
that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always
displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries
force a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there
was something in the air with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give
utterance to his offensive expression- something in his manner of
enunciation- which at first interested, and afterwards made me very
uneasy- something which, for want of a more definite term at
present, I must be permitted to call queer; but which Mr. Coleridge
would have called mystical, Mr. Kant pantheistical, Mr. Carlyle
twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyperquizzitistical. I began not to like it
at all. Mr. Dammits soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to
bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve him as
St. Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the toad,-
that is to say, "awaken him to a sense of his situation." I
addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to
remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at
expostulation.

  When I had made an end of my lecture, Mr. Dammit indulged himself in
some very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent,
merely looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw
his head to one side, and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent.
Then he spread out the palms of his hands and shrugged up his
shoulders. Then he winked with the right eye. Then he repeated the
operation with the left. Then he shut them both up very tight. Then he
opened them both so very wide that I became seriously alarmed for
the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his nose, he thought
proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of his fingers.
Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to reply.

  I can call to mind only the beads of his discourse. He would be
obliged to me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my
advice. He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to take
care of himself. Did I still think him baby Dammit? Did I mean to
say any thing against his character? Did I intend to insult him? Was I
a fool? Was my maternal parent aware, in a word, of my absence from
the domiciliary residence? He would put this latter question to me
as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself to abide by my
reply. Once more he would demand explicitly if my mother knew that I
was out. My confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be willing
to bet the Devil his head that she did not.

  Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he
left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him
that he did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been
aroused. For once I would have taken him up upon his insulting
wager. I would have won for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit's little head-
for the fact is, my mamma was very well aware of my merely temporary
absence from home.

  But Khoda shefa midehed- Heaven gives relief- as the Mussulmans
say when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty
that I had been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now
seemed to me, however, that I had done all that could be required of
me, in the case of this miserable individual, and I resolved to
trouble him no longer with my counsel, but to leave him to his
conscience and himself. But although I forebore to intrude with my
advice, I could not bring myself to give up his society altogether.
I even went so far as to humor some of his less reprehensible
propensities; and there were times when I found myself lauding his
wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes:- so
profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.

  One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, our route
led us in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we
resolved to cross it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from
the weather, and the archway, having but few windows, was thus very
uncomfortably dark. As we entered the passage, the contrast between
the external glare and the interior gloom struck heavily upon my
spirits. Not so upon those of the unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet
the Devil his head that I was hipped. He seemed to be in an unusual
good humor. He was excessively lively- so much so that I entertained I
know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not impossible that he was
affected with the transcendentals. I am not well enough versed,
however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with decision
upon the point; and unhappily there were none of my friends of the
"Dial" present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain
species of austere Merry-Andrewism which seemed to beset my poor
friend, and caused him to make quite a Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing
would serve him but wriggling and skipping about under and over
every thing that came in his way; now shouting out, and now lisping
out, all manner of odd little and big words, yet preserving the
gravest face in the world all the time. I really could not make up
my mind whether to kick or to pity him. At length, having passed
nearly across the bridge, we approached the termination of the
footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some
height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as
usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He
insisted upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing
over it in the air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not
think he could do. The best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style
was my friend Mr. Carlyle, and as I knew he could not do it, I would
not believe that it could be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore told
him, in so many words, that he was a braggadocio, and could not do
what he said. For this I had reason to be sorry afterward;- for he
straightway offered to bet the Devil his head that he could.

  I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions,
with some remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at
my elbow, a slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation
"ahem!" I started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at
length fell into a nook of the frame- work of the bridge, and upon the
figure of a little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing
could be more reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only
had on a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the
collar turned very neatly down over a white cravat, while his hair was
parted in front like a girl's. His hands were clasped pensively
together over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up
into the top of his head.

  Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black
silk apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I
thought very odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however,
upon so singular a circumstance, he interrupted me with a second
"ahem!"

  To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The
fact is, remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I
have known a Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word "Fudge!" I am
not ashamed to say, therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for
assistance.

  "Dammit," said I, "what are you about? don't you hear?- the
gentleman says 'ahem!'" I looked sternly at my friend while I thus
addressed him; for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and
when a man is particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look
savage, or else he is pretty sure to look like a fool.

  "Dammit," observed I- although this sounded very much like an
oath, than which nothing was further from my thoughts- "Dammit," I
suggested- "the gentleman says 'ahem!'"

  I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I
did not think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect
of our speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in
our own eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a
Paixhan bomb, or knocked him in the head with the "Poets and Poetry of
America," he could hardly have been more discomfited than when I
addressed him with those simple words: "Dammit, what are you about?-
don't you hear?- the gentleman says 'ahem!'"

  "You don't say so?" gasped he at length, after turning more colors
than a pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a
man-of-war. "Are you quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am
in for it now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here
goes, then- ahem!"

  At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased- God only knows why.
He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a
gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially,
looking all the while straight up in his face with an air of the
most unadulterated benignity which it is possible for the mind of
man to imagine.

  "I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit," said he, with the
frankest of all smiles, "but we are obliged to have a trial, you know,
for the sake of mere form."

  "Ahem!" replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh,
tying a pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an
unaccountable alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes
and bringing down the corners of his mouth- "ahem!" And "ahem!" said
he again, after a pause; and not another word more than "ahem!" did
I ever know him to say after that. "Aha!" thought I, without
expressing myself aloud- "this is quite a remarkable silence on the
part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt a consequence of his verbosity
upon a previous occasion. One extreme induces another. I wonder if
he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions which he propounded
to me so fluently on the day when I gave him my last lecture? At all
events, he is cured of the transcendentals."

  "Ahem!" here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my
thoughts, and looking like a very old sheep in a revery.

  The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the
shade of the bridge- a few paces back from the turnstile. "My good
fellow," said he, "I make it a point of conscience to allow you this
much run. Wait here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I
may see whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and
don't omit any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I
will say 'one, two, three, and away.' Mind you, start at the word
'away'" Here he took his position by the stile, paused a moment as
if in profound reflection, then looked up and, I thought, smiled
very slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a
long look at Dammit, and finally gave the word as agreed upon-

                   One- two- three- and- away!

  Punctually at the word "away," my poor friend set off in a strong
gallop. The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord's- nor yet very
low, like that of Mr. Lord's reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure
that he would clear it. And then what if he did not?- ah, that was the
question- what if he did not? "What right," said I, "had the old
gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old
dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he asks me to jump, I won't do it,
that's flat, and I don't care who the devil he is." The bridge, as I
say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there
was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times- an echo which I
never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four
last words of my remark.

  But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only
an instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor
Toby had taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from
the floor of the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his
legs as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to
admiration just over the top of the stile; and of course I thought
it an unusually singular thing that he did not continue to go over.
But the whole leap was the affair of a moment, and, before I had a
chance to make any profound reflections, down came Mr. Dammit on the
flat of his back, on the same side of the stile from which he had
started. At the same instant I saw the old gentleman limping off at
the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up in his apron
something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the arch just
over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had no
leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded
that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my
assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what
might be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived
of his head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere;
so I determined to take him home and send for the homoeopathists. In
the meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent
window of the bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once.
About five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing
the arch of the foot-path so as to constitute a brace, there
extended a flat iron bar, lying with its breadth horizontally, and
forming one of a series that served to strengthen the structure
throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident
that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact.

  He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homoeopathists did
not give him little enough physic, and what little they did give him
he hesitated to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died,
a lesson to all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears,
worked a bar sinister on his family escutcheon, and, for the general
expenses of his funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the
transcendentalists. The scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had Mr.
Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for dog's meat.

                            THE END
.