The Last Man
you derive from its fostering care, comfort, and hope, my struggles
shall not cease,—I will not call myself altogether vanquished.
One fine February day, when the sun had reassumed some of its genial
power, I walked in the forest with my family. It was one of those
lovely winter-days which assert the capacity of nature to bestow beauty
on barrenness. The leafless trees spread their fibrous branches against
the pure sky; their intricate and pervious tracery resembled delicate
sea-weed; the deer were turning up the snow in search of the hidden
grass; the white was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and trunks of
the trees, rendered more conspicuous by the loss of preponderating
foliage, gathered around like the labyrinthine columns of a vast
temple; it was impossible not to receive pleasure from the sight of
these things. Our children, freed from the bondage of winter, bounded
before us; pursuing the deer, or rousing the pheasants and partridges
from their coverts. Idris leant on my arm; her sadness yielded to the
present sense of pleasure. We met other families on the Long Walk,
enjoying like ourselves the return of the genial season. At once, I
seemed to awake; I cast off the clinging sloth of the past months;
earth assumed a new appearance, and my view of the future was suddenly
made clear. I exclaimed, “I have now found out the secret!”
“What secret?”
In answer to this question, I described our gloomy winter-life, our
sordid cares, our menial labours:—“This northern country,” I said, “is
no place for our diminished race. When mankind were few, it was not
here that they battled with the powerful agents of nature, and were
enabled to cover the globe with offspring. We must seek some natural
Paradise, some garden of the earth, where our simple wants may be
easily supplied, and the enjoyment of a delicious climate compensate
for the social pleasures we have lost. If we survive this coming
summer, I will not spend the ensuing winter in England; neither I nor
any of us.”
I spoke without much heed, and the very conclusion of what I said
brought with it other thoughts. Should we, any of us, survive the
coming summer? I saw the brow of Idris clouded; I again felt, that we
were enchained to the car of fate, over whose coursers we had no
control. We could no longer say, This we will do, and this we will
leave undone. A mightier power than the human was at hand to destroy
our plans or to achieve the work we avoided. It were madness to
calculate upon another winter. This was our last. The coming summer was
the extreme end of our vista; and, when we arrived there, instead of a
continuation of the long road, a gulph yawned, into which we must of
force be precipitated. The last blessing of humanity was wrested from
us; we might no longer hope. Can the madman, as he clanks his chains,
hope? Can the wretch, led to the scaffold, who when he lays his head on
the block, marks the double shadow of himself and the executioner,
whose uplifted arm bears the axe, hope? Can the ship-wrecked mariner,
who spent with swimming, hears close behind the splashing waters
divided by a shark which pursues him through the Atlantic, hope? Such
hope as theirs, we also may entertain!
Old fable tells us, that this gentle spirit sprung from the box of
Pandora, else crammed with evils; but these were unseen and null, while
all admired the inspiriting loveliness of young Hope; each man’s heart
became her home; she was enthroned sovereign of our lives, here and
here-after; she was deified and worshipped, declared incorruptible and
everlasting. But like all other gifts of the Creator to Man, she is
mortal; her life has attained its last hour. We have watched over her;
nursed her flickering existence; now she has fallen at once from youth
to decrepitude, from health to immedicinable disease; even as we spend
ourselves in struggles for her recovery, she dies; to all nations the
voice goes forth, Hope is dead! We are but mourners in the funeral
train, and what immortal essence or perishable creation will refuse to
make one in the sad procession that attends to its grave the dead
comforter of humanity?
Does not the sun call in his light? and day
Like a thin exhalation melt away—
Both wrapping up their beams in clouds to be
Themselves close mourners at this obsequie.[18]
[16] Wordsworth.
[17] Prior’s “Solomon.”
[18] Cleveland’s Poems.
VOL. III.
CHAPTER I.
Hear you not the rushing sound of the coming tempest? Do you not behold
the clouds open, and destruction lurid and dire pour down on the
blasted earth? See you not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by
the shout of heaven that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth
quake and open with agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with
shrieks and wailings,— all announcing the last days of man? No! none of
these things accompanied our fall! The balmy air of spring, breathed
from nature’s ambrosial home, invested the lovely earth, which wakened
as a young mother about to lead forth in pride her beauteous offspring
to meet their sire who had been long absent. The buds decked the trees,
the flowers adorned the land: the dark branches, swollen with
seasonable juices, expanded into leaves, and the variegated foliage of
spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced in the genial
warmth of the unclouded empyrean: the brooks flowed murmuring, the sea
was waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it were reflected in
the placid waters; birds awoke in the woods, while abundant food for
man and beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was pain and evil?
Not in the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or fertile
fields, nor among the birds that made the woods resonant with song, nor
the animals that in the midst of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our
enemy, like the Calamity of Homer, trod our hearts, and no sound was
echoed from her steps—
With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,
Diseases haunt our frail humanity,
Through noon, through night, on casual wing they glide,
Silent,—a voice the power all-wise denied.[19]
Once man was a favourite of the Creator, as the royal psalmist sang,
“God had made him a little lower than the angels, and had crowned him
with glory and honour. God made him to have dominion over the works of
his hands, and put all things under his feet.” Once it was so; now is
man lord of the creation? Look at him—ha! I see plague! She has
invested his form, is incarnate in his flesh, has entwined herself with
his being, and blinds his heaven-seeking eyes. Lie down, O man, on the
flower-strown earth; give up all claim to your inheritance, all you can
ever possess of it is the small cell which the dead require. Plague is
the companion of spring, of sunshine, and plenty. We no longer struggle
with her. We have forgotten what we did when she was not. Of old navies
used to stem the giant ocean-waves betwixt Indus and the Pole for
slight articles of luxury. Men made perilous journies to possess
themselves of earth’s splendid trifles, gems and gold. Human labour was
wasted—human life set at nought. Now life is all that we covet; that
this automaton of flesh should, with joints and springs in order,
perform its functions, that this dwelling of the soul should be capable
of containing its dweller. Our minds, late spread abroad through
countless spheres and endless combinations of thought, now retrenched
themselves behind this wall of flesh, eager to preserve its well-being
only. We were surely sufficiently degraded.
At first the increase of sickness in spring brought increase of toil to
such of us, who, as yet spared to life, bestowed our time and thoughts
on our fellow creatures. We nerved ourselves to the task: “in the midst
of despair we performed the tasks of hope.” We went out with the
resolution of disputing with our foe. We aided the sick, and comforted
the sorrowing; turning from the multitudinous dead to the rare
survivors, with an energy of desire that bore the resemblance of power,
we bade them—live. Plague sat paramount the while, and laughed us to
scorn.
Have any of you, my readers, observed the ruins of an anthill
immediately after its destruction? At first it appears entirely
deserted of its former inhabitants; in a little time you see an ant
struggling through the upturned mould; they reappear by twos and
threes, running hither and thither in search of their lost companions.
Such were we upon earth, wondering aghast at the effects of pestilence.
Our empty habitations remained, but the dwellers were gathered to the
shades of the tomb.
As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost, some began with
hesitation and wonder to transgress the accustomed uses of society.
Palaces were deserted, and the poor man dared at length, unreproved,
intrude into the splendid apartments, whose very furniture and
decorations were an unknown world to him. It was found, that, though at
first the stop put to all circulation of property, had reduced those
before supported by the factitious wants of society to sudden and
hideous poverty, yet when the boundaries of private possession were
thrown down, the products of human labour at present existing were
more, far more, than the thinned generation could possibly consume. To
some among the poor this was matter of exultation. We were all equal
now; magnificent dwellings, luxurious carpets, and beds of down, were
afforded to all. Carriages and horses, gardens, pictures, statues, and
princely libraries, there were enough of these even to superfluity; and
there was nothing to prevent each from assuming possession of his
share. We were all equal now; but near at hand was an equality still
more levelling, a state where beauty and strength, and wisdom, would be
as vain as riches and birth. The grave yawned beneath us all, and its
prospect prevented any of us from enjoying the ease and plenty which in
so awful a manner was presented to us.
Still the bloom did not fade on the cheeks of my babes; and Clara
sprung up in years and growth, unsullied by disease. We had no reason
to think the site of Windsor Castle peculiarly healthy, for many other
families had expired beneath its roof; we lived therefore without any
particular precaution; but we lived, it seemed, in safety. If Idris
became thin and pale, it was anxiety that occasioned the change; an
anxiety I could in no way alleviate. She never complained, but sleep
and appetite fled from her, a slow fever preyed on her veins, her
colour was hectic, and she often wept in secret; gloomy
prognostications, care, and agonizing dread, ate up the principle of
life within her. I could not fail to perceive this change. I often
wished that I had permitted her to take her own course, and engage
herself in such labours for the welfare of others as might have
distracted her thoughts. But it was too late now. Besides that, with
the nearly extinct race of man, all our toils grew near a conclusion,
she was too weak; consumption, if so it might be called, or rather the
over active life within her, which, as with Adrian, spent the vital oil
in the early morning hours, deprived her limbs of strength. At night,
when she could leave me unperceived, she wandered through the house, or
hung over the couches of her children; and in the day time would sink
into a perturbed sleep, while her murmurs and starts betrayed the
unquiet dreams that vexed her. As this state of wretchedness became
more confirmed, and, in spite of her endeavours at concealment more
apparent, I strove, though vainly, to awaken in her courage and hope. I
could not wonder at the vehemence of her care; her very soul was
tenderness; she trusted indeed that she should not outlive me if I
became the prey of the vast calamity, and this thought sometimes