The Lighthouse Revisited

Jan 1 — 1796. This day — my first on the light-house — I make this entry in my Diary, as agreed on with De Grät. As regularly as I can keep the journal, I will — but there is no telling what may happen to a man all alone as I am — I may get sick, or worse ..... So far well! The cutter had a narrow escape — but why dwell on that, since I am here, all safe? My spirits are beginning to revive already, at the mere thought of being — for once in my life at least — thoroughly alone; for, of course, Neptune, large as he is, is not to be taken into consideration as “society”. Would to Heaven I had ever found in “society” one half as much faith as in this poor dog: — in such case I and “society” might never have parted — even for the year ... What most surprises me, is the difficulty De Grät had in getting me the appointment — and I a noble of the realm! It could not be that the Consistory had any doubt of my ability to manage the light. One man had attended it before now — and got on quite as well as [page 2:] the three that are usually put in. The duty is a mere nothing; and the printed instructions are as plain as possible. It never would have done to let Orndoff accompany me. I never should have made any way with my book as long as he was within reach of me, with his intolerable gossip — not to mention that everlasting mëerschaum. Besides, I wish to be alone ...... It is strange that I never observed, until this moment, how dreary a sound that word has — “alone”! I could half fancy there was some peculiarity in the echo of these cylindrical walls — but oh, no! — this is all nonsense. I do believe I am going to get nervous about my insulation. That will never do. I have not forgotten De Grät's prophecy. Now for a scramble to the lantern and a good look around to “see what I can see” ................ To see what I can see indeed! — not very much. The swell is subsiding a little, I think — but the cutter will have a rough passage home, nevertheless. She will hardly get within sight of the Norland before noon to-morrow — and yet it can hardly be more than 190 or 200 miles.

Jan.2. I have passed this day in a species of ecstasy that I find it impossible [page 3:] to describe. My passion for solitude could scarcely have been more thoroughly gratified. I do not say satisfied; for I believe I should never be satiated with such delight as I have experienced to-day ......... The wind lulled about day-break, and by the afternoon the sea had gone down materially ..... Nothing to be seen, with the telescope even, but ocean and sky, with an occasional gull.

Jan. 3. A dead calm all day. Towards evening, the sea looked very much like glass. A few sea-weeds came in sight; but besides them absolutely nothing all day — not even the slightest speck of cloud. ....... Occupied myself in exploring the light-house .... It is a very lofty one — as I find to my cost when I have to ascend its interminable stairs — not quite 160 feet, I should say, from the low-water mark to the top of the lantern. From the bottom inside the shaft, however, the distance to the summit is 180 feet at least: — thus the floor is 20 feet below the surface of the sea, even at low-tide ...... It seems to me that the hollow interior at the bottom should have been filled in with solid masonry. Undoubtedly the whole would have been thus rendered more safe: — but what am I thinking about? A structure such as this is safe enough under any circumstances. I should feel myself secure [page 4:] in it during the fiercest hurricane that ever raged — and yet I have heard seamen say occasionally, with a wind at South-West, the sea has been known to run higher here than any where with the single exception of the Western opening of the Straits of Magellan. No mere sea, though, could accomplish anything with this solid iron-riveted wall — which, at 50 feet from high-water mark, is four feet thick, if one inch ........ The basis on which the structure rests seems to me to be chalk ......

Jan 4.

There is much meat for how this fragment by Poe would have been carried forward. My reflections follow.

January of the year of 1796, the date Napoleon about to be appointed as general in France. Jay Treaty between Britain and the U.S. ratified. 

De Grät. Napoleon. Norwegian for they wept. He has an unnamed prophecy. The strict condition of Keeping a diary. This could be Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and similar utilitarian dogma that Poe lampooned in his tales of talented as opposed to genius “practical men.”

Neptune was the name of the dog in The Diary of Julius Rodman. That fictional diary was entered into the Congressional record as proof of an American claim to land on the continental west coast. 

 The meërschaum pipe of Orndorf, with his intolerable gossip. Meerschaum is “sea-foam” translated. The mineral floats upon the Dead Sea. How unlike Dupin with his meërschaum and lofty and superior investigatorial method. 

The cutter that apparently brought the narrator will be in sight of a ship called The Norland. Again Norway. 

The Lighthouse. Explored, its construction may have been unsafe, yet having a solid iron-riveted wall — which, at 50 feet from high-water mark, is four feet thick, the lower floor 20 feet below the sea at low tide.  Embedded in chalk. The sea has been known to run higher here than any where with the single exception of the Western opening of the Straits of Magellan. Is this a case of pit and pendulum and the maelstrom combined? 

The italicized words in order: can, here, One, alone, faith, That, satisfied, inside, safe. Perhaps "That one here inside, can faith alone satisfy safe."  or "That safe here inside. One faith alone can satisfy ." See the transcedalists that Poe excoriated as Bedlamites time and again as in The Fall of the House of Usher and Professor Tar and Dr. Feathers in particular.

What to make of these hints? Was Poe assigned some mission dealing with a diplomatic geopolitical issue before his untimely death, in the midst of an American election in Baltimore, perhaps having been a political murder? 

Norway had opposed Napoleon and thereby became independent from Denmark. Norway's constitutional monarchy established in 1814. Marquis de Lafayette's American triumphant tour in 1824 for which the young Poe appeared as part of an honor guard. During the French revolution he stood for a constitutional monarchy, but fled the terror to Austria where he was held prisoner from 1772 to 1779 and freed thanks to the efforts of his wife. As Beethoven's opera Fidelio celebrated. LaFayette personally visited and honored Poe's grandfather Quartermaster General David Poe's widow with a pension in Baltimore. George Washington provided sanctuary for LaFayette’s children. 

As to the intolerable gossip of Orndorf, how is this related to the Emerson essay Self Reliance? Poe’s campaign against Masonic Quietism of Longfellow, which is also the Romanticist DeStael’s back to nature trope of Transcendentalism. Remember that Poe elaborated that Kepler’s hypothesis generation augmented with consistency is the path to all scientific progress in his Eureka. See Thoreau and Emerson’s Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds quotation. And his quest to be completely alone outside of society’s constraints as solipsism. This breaks down the necessary rationality and invites madness of a crazed internal dialogue as in mens rea of The Telltale Heart.