The Last Man
for me. Many dear friends are left to you.”
“And yet,” cried Clara, “you talk of their dying also. This is indeed
cruel —how could I live, if they were gone? If it were possible for my
beloved protector to die before me, I could not nurse him; I could only
die too.”
The venerable lady survived this scene only twenty-four hours. She was
the last tie binding us to the ancient state of things. It was
impossible to look on her, and not call to mind in their wonted guise,
events and persons, as alien to our present situation as the disputes
of Themistocles and Aristides, or the wars of the two roses in our
native land. The crown of England had pressed her brow; the memory of
my father and his misfortunes, the vain struggles of the late king, the
images of Raymond, Evadne, and Perdita, who had lived in the world’s
prime, were brought vividly before us. We consigned her to the
oblivious tomb with reluctance; and when I turned from her grave, Janus
veiled his retrospective face; that which gazed on future generations
had long lost its faculty.
After remaining a week at Dijon, until thirty of our number deserted
the vacant ranks of life, we continued our way towards Geneva. At noon
on the second day we arrived at the foot of Jura. We halted here during
the heat of the day. Here fifty human beings—fifty, the only human
beings that survived of the food-teeming earth, assembled to read in
the looks of each other ghastly plague, or wasting sorrow, desperation,
or worse, carelessness of future or present evil. Here we assembled at
the foot of this mighty wall of mountain, under a spreading walnut
tree; a brawling stream refreshed the green sward by its sprinkling;
and the busy grasshopper chirped among the thyme. We clustered together
a group of wretched sufferers. A mother cradled in her enfeebled arms
the child, last of many, whose glazed eye was about to close for ever.
Here beauty, late glowing in youthful lustre and consciousness, now wan
and neglected, knelt fanning with uncertain motion the beloved, who lay
striving to paint his features, distorted by illness, with a thankful
smile. There an hard-featured, weather-worn veteran, having prepared
his meal, sat, his head dropped on his breast, the useless knife
falling from his grasp, his limbs utterly relaxed, as thought of wife
and child, and dearest relative, all lost, passed across his
recollection. There sat a man who for forty years had basked in
fortune’s tranquil sunshine; he held the hand of his last hope, his
beloved daughter, who had just attained womanhood; and he gazed on her
with anxious eyes, while she tried to rally her fainting spirit to
comfort him. Here a servant, faithful to the last, though dying, waited
on one, who, though still erect with health, gazed with gasping fear on
the variety of woe around.
Adrian stood leaning against a tree; he held a book in his hand, but
his eye wandered from the pages, and sought mine; they mingled a
sympathetic glance; his looks confessed that his thoughts had quitted
the inanimate print, for pages more pregnant with meaning, more
absorbing, spread out before him. By the margin of the stream, apart
from all, in a tranquil nook, where the purling brook kissed the green
sward gently, Clara and Evelyn were at play, sometimes beating the
water with large boughs, sometimes watching the summer-flies that
sported upon it. Evelyn now chased a butterfly—now gathered a flower
for his cousin; and his laughing cherub-face and clear brow told of the
light heart that beat in his bosom. Clara, though she endeavoured to
give herself up to his amusement, often forgot him, as she turned to
observe Adrian and me. She was now fourteen, and retained her childish
appearance, though in height a woman; she acted the part of the
tenderest mother to my little orphan boy; to see her playing with him,
or attending silently and submissively on our wants, you thought only
of her admirable docility and patience; but, in her soft eyes, and the
veined curtains that veiled them, in the clearness of her marmoreal
brow, and the tender expression of her lips, there was an intelligence
and beauty that at once excited admiration and love.
When the sun had sunk towards the precipitate west, and the evening
shadows grew long, we prepared to ascend the mountain. The attention
that we were obliged to pay to the sick, made our progress slow. The
winding road, though steep, presented a confined view of rocky fields
and hills, each hiding the other, till our farther ascent disclosed
them in succession. We were seldom shaded from the declining sun, whose
slant beams were instinct with exhausting heat. There are times when
minor difficulties grow gigantic —times, when as the Hebrew poet
expressively terms it, “the grasshopper is a burthen;” so was it with
our ill fated party this evening. Adrian, usually the first to rally
his spirits, and dash foremost into fatigue and hardship, with relaxed
limbs and declined head, the reins hanging loosely in his grasp, left
the choice of the path to the instinct of his horse, now and then
painfully rousing himself, when the steepness of the ascent required
that he should keep his seat with better care. Fear and horror
encompassed me. Did his languid air attest that he also was struck with
contagion? How long, when I look on this matchless specimen of
mortality, may I perceive that his thought answers mine? how long will
those limbs obey the kindly spirit within? how long will light and life
dwell in the eyes of this my sole remaining friend? Thus pacing slowly,
each hill surmounted, only presented another to be ascended; each
jutting corner only discovered another, sister to the last, endlessly.
Sometimes the pressure of sickness in one among us, caused the whole
cavalcade to halt; the call for water, the eagerly expressed wish to
repose; the cry of pain, and suppressed sob of the mourner—such were
the sorrowful attendants of our passage of the Jura.
Adrian had gone first. I saw him, while I was detained by the loosening
of a girth, struggling with the upward path, seemingly more difficult
than any we had yet passed. He reached the top, and the dark outline of
his figure stood in relief against the sky. He seemed to behold
something unexpected and wonderful; for, pausing, his head stretched
out, his arms for a moment extended, he seemed to give an All Hail! to
some new vision. Urged by curiosity, I hurried to join him. After
battling for many tedious minutes with the precipice, the same scene
presented itself to me, which had wrapt him in extatic wonder.
Nature, or nature’s favourite, this lovely earth, presented her most
unrivalled beauties in resplendent and sudden exhibition. Below, far,
far below, even as it were in the yawning abyss of the ponderous globe,
lay the placid and azure expanse of lake Leman; vine-covered hills
hedged it in, and behind dark mountains in cone-like shape, or
irregular cyclopean wall, served for further defence. But beyond, and
high above all, as if the spirits of the air had suddenly unveiled
their bright abodes, placed in scaleless altitude in the stainless sky,
heaven-kissing, companions of the unattainable ether, were the glorious
Alps, clothed in dazzling robes of light by the setting sun. And, as if
the world’s wonders were never to be exhausted, their vast immensities,
their jagged crags, and roseate painting, appeared again in the lake
below, dipping their proud heights beneath the unruffled waves—palaces
for the Naiads of the placid waters. Towns and villages lay scattered
at the foot of Jura, which, with dark ravine, and black promontories,
stretched its roots into the watery expanse beneath. Carried away by
wonder, I forgot the death of man, and the living and beloved friend
near me. When I turned, I saw tears streaming from his eyes; his thin
hands pressed one against the other, his animated countenance beaming
with admiration; “Why,” cried he, at last, “Why, oh heart, whisperest
thou of grief to me? Drink in the beauty of that scene, and possess
delight beyond what a fabled paradise could afford.”
By degrees, our whole party surmounting the steep, joined us, not one
among them, but gave visible tokens of admiration, surpassing any
before experienced. One cried, “God reveals his heaven to us; we may
die blessed.” Another and another, with broken exclamations, and
extravagant phrases, endeavoured to express the intoxicating effect of
this wonder of nature. So we remained awhile, lightened of the pressing
burthen of fate, forgetful of death, into whose night we were about to
plunge; no longer reflecting that our eyes now and for ever were and
would be the only ones which might perceive the divine magnificence of
this terrestrial exhibition. An enthusiastic transport, akin to
happiness, burst, like a sudden ray from the sun, on our darkened life.
Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch extatic
emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly
ploughs up and lays waste every hope.
This evening was marked by another event. Passing through Ferney in our
way to Geneva, unaccustomed sounds of music arose from the rural church
which stood embosomed in trees, surrounded by smokeless, vacant
cottages. The peal of an organ with rich swell awoke the mute air,
lingering along, and mingling with the intense beauty that clothed the
rocks and woods, and waves around. Music—the language of the immortals,
disclosed to us as testimony of their existence—music, “silver key of
the fountain of tears,” child of love, soother of grief, inspirer of
heroism and radiant thoughts, O music, in this our desolation, we had
forgotten thee! Nor pipe at eve cheered us, nor harmony of voice, nor
linked thrill of string; thou camest upon us now, like the revealing of
other forms of being; and transported as we had been by the loveliness
of nature, fancying that we beheld the abode of spirits, now we might
well imagine that we heard their melodious communings. We paused in
such awe as would seize on a pale votarist, visiting some holy shrine
at midnight; if she beheld animated and smiling, the image which she
worshipped. We all stood mute; many knelt. In a few minutes however, we
were recalled to human wonder and sympathy by a familiar strain. The
air was Haydn’s “New-Created World,” and, old and drooping as humanity
had become, the world yet fresh as at creation’s day, might still be
worthily celebrated by such an hymn of praise. Adrian and I entered the
church; the nave was empty, though the smoke of incense rose from the
altar, bringing with it the recollection of vast congregations, in once
thronged cathedrals; we went into the loft. A blind old man sat at the
bellows; his whole soul was ear; and as he sat in the attitude of
attentive listening, a bright glow of pleasure was diffused over his
countenance; for, though his lack-lustre eye could not reflect the
beam, yet his parted lips, and every line of his face and venerable
brow spoke delight. A young woman sat at the keys, perhaps twenty years
of age. Her auburn hair hung on her neck, and her fair brow shone in
its own beauty; but her drooping eyes let fall fast-flowing tears,
while the constraint she exercised to suppress her sobs, and still her
trembling, flushed her else pale cheek; she was thin; languor, and
alas! sickness, bent her form. We stood looking at the pair, forgetting
what we heard in the absorbing sight; till, the last chord struck, the
peal died away in lessening reverberations. The mighty voice, inorganic
we might call it, for we could in no way associate it with mechanism of
pipe or key, stilled its sonorous tone, and the girl, turning to lend
her assistance to her aged companion, at length perceived us.
It was her father; and she, since childhood, had been the guide of his