The Last Man
try to hush thronging fears, and in some measure succeeded. It was not
as in summer-time, when each hour might bring the dreaded fate—until
summer, we felt sure; and this certainty, short lived as it must be,
yet for awhile satisfied her maternal tenderness. I know not how to
express or communicate the sense of concentrated, intense, though
evanescent transport, that imparadized us in the present hour. Our joys
were dearer because we saw their end; they were keener because we felt,
to its fullest extent, their value; they were purer because their
essence was sympathy— as a meteor is brighter than a star, did the
felicity of this winter contain in itself the extracted delights of a
long, long life.
How lovely is spring! As we looked from Windsor Terrace on the sixteen
fertile counties spread beneath, speckled by happy cottages and
wealthier towns, all looked as in former years, heart-cheering and
fair. The land was ploughed, the slender blades of wheat broke through
the dark soil, the fruit trees were covered with buds, the husbandman
was abroad in the fields, the milk-maid tripped home with well-filled
pails, the swallows and martins struck the sunny pools with their long,
pointed wings, the new dropped lambs reposed on the young grass, the
tender growth of leaves—
Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds
A silent space with ever sprouting green.[12]
Man himself seemed to regenerate, and feel the frost of winter yield to
an elastic and warm renewal of life—reason told us that care and sorrow
would grow with the opening year—but how to believe the ominous voice
breathed up with pestiferous vapours from fear’s dim cavern, while
nature, laughing and scattering from her green lap flowers, and fruits,
and sparkling waters, invited us to join the gay masque of young life
she led upon the scene?
Where was the plague? “Here—every where!” one voice of horror and
dismay exclaimed, when in the pleasant days of a sunny May the
Destroyer of man brooded again over the earth, forcing the spirit to
leave its organic chrysalis, and to enter upon an untried life. With
one mighty sweep of its potent weapon, all caution, all care, all
prudence were levelled low: death sat at the tables of the great,
stretched itself on the cottager’s pallet, seized the dastard who fled,
quelled the brave man who resisted: despondency entered every heart,
sorrow dimmed every eye.
Sights of woe now became familiar to me, and were I to tell all of
anguish and pain that I witnessed, of the despairing moans of age, and
the more terrible smiles of infancy in the bosom of horror, my reader,
his limbs quivering and his hair on end, would wonder how I did not,
seized with sudden frenzy, dash myself from some precipice, and so
close my eyes for ever on the sad end of the world. But the powers of
love, poetry, and creative fancy will dwell even beside the sick of the
plague, with the squalid, and with the dying. A feeling of devotion, of
duty, of a high and steady purpose, elevated me; a strange joy filled
my heart. In the midst of saddest grief I seemed to tread air, while
the spirit of good shed round me an ambrosial atmosphere, which blunted
the sting of sympathy, and purified the air of sighs. If my wearied
soul flagged in its career, I thought of my loved home, of the casket
that contained my treasures, of the kiss of love and the filial caress,
while my eyes were moistened by purest dew, and my heart was at once
softened and refreshed by thrilling tenderness.
Maternal affection had not rendered Idris selfish; at the beginning of
our calamity she had, with thoughtless enthusiasm, devoted herself to
the care of the sick and helpless. I checked her; and she submitted to
my rule. I told her how the fear of her danger palsied my exertions,
how the knowledge of her safety strung my nerves to endurance. I shewed
her the dangers which her children incurred during her absence; and she
at length agreed not to go beyond the inclosure of the forest. Indeed,
within the walls of the Castle we had a colony of the unhappy, deserted
by their relatives, and in themselves helpless, sufficient to occupy
her time and attention, while ceaseless anxiety for my welfare and the
health of her children, however she strove to curb or conceal it,
absorbed all her thoughts, and undermined the vital principle. After
watching over and providing for their safety, her second care was to
hide from me her anguish and tears. Each night I returned to the
Castle, and found there repose and love awaiting me. Often I waited
beside the bed of death till midnight, and through the obscurity of
rainy, cloudy nights rode many miles, sustained by one circumstance
only, the safety and sheltered repose of those I loved. If some scene
of tremendous agony shook my frame and fevered my brow, I would lay my
head on the lap of Idris, and the tumultuous pulses subsided into a
temperate flow —her smile could raise me from hopelessness, her embrace
bathe my sorrowing heart in calm peace. Summer advanced, and, crowned
with the sun’s potent rays, plague shot her unerring shafts over the
earth. The nations beneath their influence bowed their heads, and died.
The corn that sprung up in plenty, lay in autumn rotting on the ground,
while the melancholy wretch who had gone out to gather bread for his
children, lay stiff and plague-struck in the furrow. The green woods
waved their boughs majestically, while the dying were spread beneath
their shade, answering the solemn melody with inharmonious cries. The
painted birds flitted through the shades; the careless deer reposed
unhurt upon the fern—the oxen and the horses strayed from their
unguarded stables, and grazed among the wheat, for death fell on man
alone.
With summer and mortality grew our fears. My poor love and I looked at
each other, and our babes.—“We will save them, Idris,” I said, “I will
save them. Years hence we shall recount to them our fears, then passed
away with their occasion. Though they only should remain on the earth,
still they shall live, nor shall their cheeks become pale nor their
sweet voices languish.” Our eldest in some degree understood the scenes
passing around, and at times, he with serious looks questioned me
concerning the reason of so vast a desolation. But he was only ten
years old; and the hilarity of youth soon chased unreasonable care from
his brow. Evelyn, a laughing cherub, a gamesome infant, without idea of
pain or sorrow, would, shaking back his light curls from his eyes, make
the halls re-echo with his merriment, and in a thousand artless ways
attract our attention to his play. Clara, our lovely gentle Clara, was
our stay, our solace, our delight. She made it her task to attend the
sick, comfort the sorrowing, assist the aged, and partake the sports
and awaken the gaiety of the young. She flitted through the rooms, like
a good spirit, dispatched from the celestial kingdom, to illumine our
dark hour with alien splendour. Gratitude and praise marked where her
footsteps had been. Yet, when she stood in unassuming simplicity before
us, playing with our children, or with girlish assiduity performing
little kind offices for Idris, one wondered in what fair lineament of
her pure loveliness, in what soft tone of her thrilling voice, so much
of heroism, sagacity and active goodness resided.
The summer passed tediously, for we trusted that winter would at least
check the disease. That it would vanish altogether was an hope too
dear— too heartfelt, to be expressed. When such a thought was
heedlessly uttered, the hearers, with a gush of tears and passionate
sobs, bore witness how deep their fears were, how small their hopes.
For my own part, my exertions for the public good permitted me to
observe more closely than most others, the virulence and extensive
ravages of our sightless enemy. A short month has destroyed a village,
and where in May the first person sickened, in June the paths were
deformed by unburied corpses—the houses tenantless, no smoke arising
from the chimneys; and the housewife’s clock marked only the hour when
death had been triumphant. From such scenes I have sometimes saved a
deserted infant—sometimes led a young and grieving mother from the
lifeless image of her first born, or drawn the sturdy labourer from
childish weeping over his extinct family.
July is gone. August must pass, and by the middle of September we may
hope. Each day was eagerly counted; and the inhabitants of towns,
desirous to leap this dangerous interval, plunged into dissipation, and
strove, by riot, and what they wished to imagine to be pleasure, to
banish thought and opiate despair. None but Adrian could have tamed the
motley population of London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds
rushing to their pastures, had thrown aside all minor fears, through
the operation of the fear paramount. Even Adrian was obliged in part to
yield, that he might be able, if not to guide, at least to set bounds
to the license of the times. The theatres were kept open; every place
of public resort was frequented; though he endeavoured so to modify
them, as might best quiet the agitation of the spectators, and at the
same time prevent a reaction of misery when the excitement was over.
Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites. Comedy brought with
it too great a contrast to the inner despair: when such were attempted,
it was not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the laughter
occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery, to find a word or thought
in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and burst
from mimic merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators, seized
with irresistible sympathy, wept, and the pantomimic revelry was
changed to a real exhibition of tragic passion.
It was not in my nature to derive consolation from such scenes; from
theatres, whose buffoon laughter and discordant mirth awakened
distempered sympathy, or where fictitious tears and wailings mocked the
heart-felt grief within; from festival or crowded meeting, where
hilarity sprung from the worst feelings of our nature, or such
enthralment of the better ones, as impressed it with garish and false
varnish; from assemblies of mourners in the guise of revellers. Once
however I witnessed a scene of singular interest at one of the
theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an overflowing cataract will
tear away the puny manufacture of a mock cascade, which had before been
fed by a small portion of its waters.
I had come to London to see Adrian. He was not at the palace; and,
though the attendants did not know whither he had gone, they did not
expect him till late at night. It was between six and seven o’clock, a
fine summer afternoon, and I spent my leisure hours in a ramble through
the empty streets of London; now turning to avoid an approaching
funeral, now urged by curiosity to observe the state of a particular
spot; my wanderings were instinct with pain, for silence and desertion
characterized every place I visited, and the few beings I met were so
pale and woe-begone, so marked with care and depressed by fear, that
weary of encountering only signs of misery, I began to retread my steps
towards home.
I was now in Holborn, and passed by a public house filled with
uproarious companions, whose songs, laughter, and shouts were more
sorrowful than the pale looks and silence of the mourner. Such an one
was near, hovering round this house. The sorry plight of her dress
displayed her poverty, she was ghastly pale, and continued approaching,
first the window and then the door of the house, as if fearful, yet
longing to enter. A sudden burst of song and merriment seemed to sting
her to the heart; she murmured, “Can he have the heart?” and then
mustering her courage, she stepped within the threshold. The landlady