“The Moonstone Mass” by Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) appeared in Harper’s, October 1868. Being such an old story it can be a bit of a wade through, but the plot is simple enough. A man wants to marry his fiancee, Eleanor, so he needs money. His Uncle Paul offers him half of his inheritance if he will go on an expedition to cross the Northwest Passage, that icy pathway from Atlantic to Pacific across the top of Canada. The Franklin Expedition of 1845 famously failed at the crossing.
The narrator heads north, promising not to spend time describing all the Esquimaux and such, then spends pages describing the cold and loneliness. When the plot gets going, the man and his native guide, Glipnu, head off on a dog sled. The pack ice breaks and Glip and most of the dogs go under, never to return. The narrator and two dogs survive. They keep wandering from ice flow to ice flow until the dogs die. It’s then that the narrator finds the Moonstone mass, a giant deposit of stone worth a fortune. The ice pulls him away and he tries to get back to the treasure.
Waking later, the narrator finds himself surrounded by whalers. The men do not believe him about crossing the passage, for he is now on the Pacific side. His wallet still has food in it. How could he have traverse so far and so fast? The man is sent home with some Russians. Back home, nobody believes him either. His uncle refuses to give him the money. Only Eleanor does not disbelieve him, though she will not let him talk about it. She reminds him of the treasure he has at home. She can see the gleam in his eye that says, someday he will go back and find that Moonstone.
Spofford’s tale is a typical post-Franklin explorer tale. The Victorians were fascinated by that doomed expedition. What makes Spofford’s tale interesting is she was an American who wrote Gothic novels. The choice of a Moonstone rather than, say gold, seems a tip-of-the-hat to Wilkie Collins, whose sensation masterpiece, The Moonstone was released the same year (1868). At Charles Dickens’ insistence, Collins also wrote The Frozen Deep (1856), a play about the Frankllin Expedition. Collins’ shadow seems to me to be behind Spofford’s choices.
The supernatural element in this story seems small. How could a man traverse such a distance in such a short time? Is Spofford suggesting that the Moonstone has magical properties? It is all a mystery. Perhaps more important is Spofford’s descriptions of all that ice and loneliness. Good Gothic scene-building. Mary Shelley used it before Spofford. Arthur Conan Doyle did after HPS.
Of the Moonstone she finishes with: “With these eyes I saw it, with these hands I touched it, with this heart I longed for it, with this will I mean to have it yet!” No matter the explanation, we know that the narrator is doomed. A type of Northern doom known to prospectors and sourdoughs after him. The north calls, offering riches–and it kills.
