The Last Man
fruits cannot support us. We must seek firing in the bowels of the
earth, or the unkind atmosphere will fill us with rheums and aches. The
labour of hundreds of thousands alone could make this inclement nook
fit habitation for one man. To the south then, to the sun!—where nature
is kind, where Jove has showered forth the contents of Amalthea’s horn,
and earth is garden.
England, late birth-place of excellence and school of the wise, thy
children are gone, thy glory faded! Thou, England, wert the triumph of
man! Small favour was shewn thee by thy Creator, thou Isle of the
North; a ragged canvas naturally, painted by man with alien colours;
but the hues he gave are faded, never more to be renewed. So we must
leave thee, thou marvel of the world; we must bid farewell to thy
clouds, and cold, and scarcity for ever! Thy manly hearts are still;
thy tale of power and liberty at its close! Bereft of man, O little
isle! the ocean waves will buffet thee, and the raven flap his wings
over thee; thy soil will be birth-place of weeds, thy sky will canopy
barrenness. It was not for the rose of Persia thou wert famous, nor the
banana of the east; not for the spicy gales of India, nor the sugar
groves of America; not for thy vines nor thy double harvests, nor for
thy vernal airs, nor solstitial sun—but for thy children, their
unwearied industry and lofty aspiration. They are gone, and thou goest
with them the oft trodden path that leads to oblivion, —
Farewell, sad Isle, farewell, thy fatal glory
Is summed, cast up, and cancelled in this story.[20]
[19] Elton’s translation of Hesiod.
[20] Cleveland’s Poems.
CHAPTER II.
In the autumn of this year 2096, the spirit of emigration crept in
among the few survivors, who, congregating from various parts of
England, met in London. This spirit existed as a breath, a wish, a far
off thought, until communicated to Adrian, who imbibed it with ardour,
and instantly engaged himself in plans for its execution. The fear of
immediate death vanished with the heats of September. Another winter
was before us, and we might elect our mode of passing it to the best
advantage. Perhaps in rational philosophy none could be better chosen
than this scheme of migration, which would draw us from the immediate
scene of our woe, and, leading us through pleasant and picturesque
countries, amuse for a time our despair. The idea once broached, all
were impatient to put it in execution.
We were still at Windsor; our renewed hopes medicined the anguish we
had suffered from the late tragedies. The death of many of our inmates
had weaned us from the fond idea, that Windsor Castle was a spot sacred
from the plague; but our lease of life was renewed for some months, and
even Idris lifted her head, as a lily after a storm, when a last
sunbeam tinges its silver cup. Just at this time Adrian came down to
us; his eager looks shewed us that he was full of some scheme. He
hastened to take me aside, and disclosed to me with rapidity his plan
of emigration from England.
To leave England for ever! to turn from its polluted fields and groves,
and, placing the sea between us, to quit it, as a sailor quits the rock
on which he has been wrecked, when the saving ship rides by. Such was
his plan.
To leave the country of our fathers, made holy by their graves!—We
could not feel even as a voluntary exile of old, who might for pleasure
or convenience forsake his native soil; though thousands of miles might
divide him, England was still a part of him, as he of her. He heard of
the passing events of the day; he knew that, if he returned, and
resumed his place in society, the entrance was still open, and it
required but the will, to surround himself at once with the
associations and habits of boyhood. Not so with us, the remnant. We
left none to represent us, none to repeople the desart land, and the
name of England died, when we left her,
In vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety.
Yet let us go! England is in her shroud,—we may not enchain ourselves
to a corpse. Let us go—the world is our country now, and we will choose
for our residence its most fertile spot. Shall we, in these desart
halls, under this wintry sky, sit with closed eyes and folded hands,
expecting death? Let us rather go out to meet it gallantly: or
perhaps—for all this pendulous orb, this fair gem in the sky’s diadem,
is not surely plague-striken—perhaps, in some secluded nook, amidst
eternal spring, and waving trees, and purling streams, we may find
Life. The world is vast, and England, though her many fields and wide
spread woods seem interminable, is but a small part of her. At the
close of a day’s march over high mountains and through snowy vallies,
we may come upon health, and committing our loved ones to its charge,
replant the uprooted tree of humanity, and send to late posterity the
tale of the ante-pestilential race, the heroes and sages of the lost
state of things.
Hope beckons and sorrow urges us, the heart beats high with
expectation, and this eager desire of change must be an omen of
success. O come! Farewell to the dead! farewell to the tombs of those
we loved!—farewell to giant London and the placid Thames, to river and
mountain or fair district, birth-place of the wise and good, to Windsor
Forest and its antique castle, farewell! themes for story alone are
they,—we must live elsewhere.
Such were in part the arguments of Adrian, uttered with enthusiasm and
unanswerable rapidity. Something more was in his heart, to which he
dared not give words. He felt that the end of time was come; he knew
that one by one we should dwindle into nothingness. It was not
adviseable to wait this sad consummation in our native country; but
travelling would give us our object for each day, that would distract
our thoughts from the swift-approaching end of things. If we went to
Italy, to sacred and eternal Rome, we might with greater patience
submit to the decree, which had laid her mighty towers low. We might
lose our selfish grief in the sublime aspect of its desolation. All
this was in the mind of Adrian; but he thought of my children, and,
instead of communicating to me these resources of despair, he called up
the image of health and life to be found, where we knew not—when we
knew not; but if never to be found, for ever and for ever to be sought.
He won me over to his party, heart and soul.
It devolved on me to disclose our plan to Idris. The images of health
and hope which I presented to her, made her with a smile consent. With
a smile she agreed to leave her country, from which she had never
before been absent, and the spot she had inhabited from infancy; the
forest and its mighty trees, the woodland paths and green recesses,
where she had played in childhood, and had lived so happily through
youth; she would leave them without regret, for she hoped to purchase
thus the lives of her children. They were her life; dearer than a spot
consecrated to love, dearer than all else the earth contained. The boys
heard with childish glee of our removal: Clara asked if we were to go
to Athens. “It is possible,” I replied; and her countenance became
radiant with pleasure. There she would behold the tomb of her parents,
and the territory filled with recollections of her father’s glory. In
silence, but without respite, she had brooded over these scenes. It was
the recollection of them that had turned her infant gaiety to
seriousness, and had impressed her with high and restless thoughts.
There were many dear friends whom we must not leave behind, humble
though they were. There was the spirited and obedient steed which Lord
Raymond had given his daughter; there was Alfred’s dog and a pet eagle,
whose sight was dimmed through age. But this catalogue of favourites to
be taken with us, could not be made without grief to think of our heavy
losses, and a deep sigh for the many things we must leave behind. The
tears rushed into the eyes of Idris, while Alfred and Evelyn brought
now a favourite rose tree, now a marble vase beautifully carved,
insisting that these must go, and exclaiming on the pity that we could
not take the castle and the forest, the deer and the birds, and all
accustomed and cherished objects along with us. “Fond and foolish
ones,” I said, “we have lost for ever treasures far more precious than
these; and we desert them, to preserve treasures to which in comparison
they are nothing. Let us not for a moment forget our object and our
hope; and they will form a resistless mound to stop the overflowing of
our regret for trifles.”
The children were easily distracted, and again returned to their
prospect of future amusement. Idris had disappeared. She had gone to
hide her weakness; escaping from the castle, she had descended to the
little park, and sought solitude, that she might there indulge her
tears; I found her clinging round an old oak, pressing its rough trunk
with her roseate lips, as her tears fell plenteously, and her sobs and
broken exclamations could not be suppressed; with surpassing grief I
beheld this loved one of my heart thus lost in sorrow! I drew her
towards me; and, as she felt my kisses on her eyelids, as she felt my
arms press her, she revived to the knowledge of what remained to her.
“You are very kind not to reproach me,” she said: “I weep, and a bitter
pang of intolerable sorrow tears my heart. And yet I am happy; mothers
lament their children, wives lose their husbands, while you and my
children are left to me. Yes, I am happy, most happy, that I can weep
thus for imaginary sorrows, and that the slight loss of my adored
country is not dwindled and annihilated in mightier misery. Take me
where you will; where you and my children are, there shall be Windsor,
and every country will be England to me. Let these tears flow not for
myself, happy and ungrateful as I am, but for the dead world—for our
lost country—for all of love, and life, and joy, now choked in the
dusty chambers of death.”
She spoke quickly, as if to convince herself; she turned her eyes from
the trees and forest-paths she loved; she hid her face in my bosom, and
we— yes, _my_ masculine firmness dissolved—we wept together consolatory
tears, and then calm—nay, almost cheerful, we returned to the castle.
The first cold weather of an English October, made us hasten our
preparations. I persuaded Idris to go up to London, where she might
better attend to necessary arrangements. I did not tell her, that to
spare her the pang of parting from inanimate objects, now the only
things left, I had resolved that we should none of us return to
Windsor. For the last time we looked on the wide extent of country
visible from the terrace, and saw the last rays of the sun tinge the
dark masses of wood variegated by autumnal tints; the uncultivated
fields and smokeless cottages lay in shadow below; the Thames wound
through the wide plain, and the venerable pile of Eton college, stood
in dark relief, a prominent object; the cawing of the myriad rooks
which inhabited the trees of the little park, as in column or thick
wedge they speeded to their nests, disturbed the silence of evening.
Nature was the same, as when she was the kind mother of the human race;
now, childless and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery; her loveliness
a mask for deformity. Why should the breeze gently stir the trees, man
felt not its refreshment? Why did dark night adorn herself with
stars—man saw them not? Why are there fruits, or flowers, or streams,
man is not here to enjoy them?
Idris stood beside me, her dear hand locked in mine. Her face was
radiant with a smile.—“The sun is alone,” she said, “but we are not. A
strange star, my Lionel, ruled our birth; sadly and with dismay we may
look upon the annihilation of man; but we remain for each other. Did I