Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
supposition I thought this was the safest way, and unlocked the closet a second
time, to see that all was precisely in the original order . . . . . How was I dismayed
and confounded on inspecting the shelves to perceive that the atlas was gone. This
was a theft, which, from the closet being under lock and key, and the key always in
my own pocket, and which, from the very nature of the thing stolen, could not be
imputed to any of the domestics. After a few moments a suspicion occurred, which
was soon changed into certainty by applying to the housekeeper, who told me that
Ludlow had returned, apparently in much haste, the evening of the day on which
he had set out upon his journey, and just after I had left the house, that he had gone
into the room where this closet of books was, and, after a few minutes’ stay, came
out again and went away. She told me also, that he had made general enquiries
after me, to which she had answered, that she had not seen me during the day,
and supposed that I had spent the whole of it abroad. From this account it was
plain, that Ludlow had returned for no other purpose but to remove this book out
of my reach. But if he had a double key to this door, what should hinder his having
access, by the same means, to every other locked up place in the house?
This suggestion made me start with terror. Of so obvious a means for possessing
a knowledge of every thing under his roof, I had never been till this moment aware.
Such is the infatuation which lays our most secret thoughts open to the world’s
scrutiny. We are frequently in most danger when we deem ourselves most safe,
and our fortress is taken sometimes through a point, whose weakness nothing, it
should seem, but the blindest stupidity could overlook.
My terrors, indeed, quickly subsided when I came to recollect that there was
nothing in any closet or cabinet of mine which could possibly throw light upon
subjects which I desired to keep in the dark. The more carefully I inspected my own
drawers, and the more I reected on the character of Ludlow, as I had known it, the
less reason did there appear in my suspicions; but I drew a lesson of caution from
this circumstance, which contributed to my future safety.
From this incident I could not but infer Ludlow’s unwillingness to let me so far
into his geographical secret, as well as the certainty of that suspicion, which had
very early been suggested to my thoughts, that Ludlow’s plans of civilization had
been carried into practice in some unvisited corner of the world. It was strange,
however, that he should betray himself by such an inadvertency. One who talked so
condently of his own powers, to unveil any secret of mine, and, at the same time,
to conceal his own transactions, had surely committed an unpardonable error in
leaving this important document in my way. My reverence, indeed, for Ludlow
was such, that I sometimes entertained the notion that this seeming oversight was,
in truth, a regular contrivance to supply me with a knowledge, of which, when I
came maturely to reect, it was impossible for me to make any ill use. There is no
use in relating what would not be believed; and should I publish to the world the
existence of islands in the space allotted by Ludlow’s maps to these incognitae,
what would the world answer? That whether the space described was sea or land
was of no importance. That the moral and political condition of its inhabitants
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