The Last Man
by marble forms of divine beauty. Each stone deity was possessed by
sacred gladness, and the eternal fruition of love. They looked on me
with unsympathizing complacency, and often in wild accents I reproached
them for their supreme indifference—for they were human shapes, the
human form divine was manifest in each fairest limb and lineament. The
perfect moulding brought with it the idea of colour and motion; often,
half in bitter mockery, half in self-delusion, I clasped their icy
proportions, and, coming between Cupid and his Psyche’s lips, pressed
the unconceiving marble.
I endeavoured to read. I visited the libraries of Rome. I selected a
volume, and, choosing some sequestered, shady nook, on the banks of the
Tiber, or opposite the fair temple in the Borghese Gardens, or under
the old pyramid of Cestius, I endeavoured to conceal me from myself,
and immerse myself in the subject traced on the pages before me. As if
in the same soil you plant nightshade and a myrtle tree, they will each
appropriate the mould, moisture, and air administered, for the
fostering their several properties—so did my grief find sustenance, and
power of existence, and growth, in what else had been divine manna, to
feed radiant meditation. Ah! while I streak this paper with the tale of
what my so named occupations were—while I shape the skeleton of my
days—my hand trembles—my heart pants, and my brain refuses to lend
expression, or phrase, or idea, by which to image forth the veil of
unutterable woe that clothed these bare realities. O, worn and beating
heart, may I dissect thy fibres, and tell how in each unmitigable
misery, sadness dire, repinings, and despair, existed? May I record my
many ravings—the wild curses I hurled at torturing nature—and how I
have passed days shut out from light and food—from all except the
burning hell alive in my own bosom?
I was presented, meantime, with one other occupation, the one best
fitted to discipline my melancholy thoughts, which strayed backwards,
over many a ruin, and through many a flowery glade, even to the
mountain recess, from which in early youth I had first emerged.
During one of my rambles through the habitations of Rome, I found
writing materials on a table in an author’s study. Parts of a
manuscript lay scattered about. It contained a learned disquisition on
the Italian language; one page an unfinished dedication to posterity,
for whose profit the writer had sifted and selected the niceties of
this harmonious language —to whose everlasting benefit he bequeathed
his labours.
I also will write a book, I cried—for whom to read?—to whom dedicated?
And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish as
despair?) I wrote,
DEDICATION
TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD.
SHADOWS, ARISE, AND READ YOUR FALL!
BEHOLD THE HISTORY OF THE
LAST MAN.
Yet, will not this world be re-peopled, and the children of a saved
pair of lovers, in some to me unknown and unattainable seclusion,
wandering to these prodigious relics of the ante-pestilential race,
seek to learn how beings so wondrous in their achievements, with
imaginations infinite, and powers godlike, had departed from their home
to an unknown country?
I will write and leave in this most ancient city, this “world’s sole
monument,” a record of these things. I will leave a monument of the
existence of Verney, the Last Man. At first I thought only to speak of
plague, of death, and last, of desertion; but I lingered fondly on my
early years, and recorded with sacred zeal the virtues of my
companions. They have been with me during the fulfilment of my task. I
have brought it to an end—I lift my eyes from my paper—again they are
lost to me. Again I feel that I am alone.
A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have
made their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful
robe of surpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer _guess_
at my state or my prospects—loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my
inseparable companion. I have endeavoured to brave the storm—I have
endeavoured to school myself to fortitude—I have sought to imbue myself
with the lessons of wisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly
grey—my voice, unused now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears.
My person, with its human powers and features, seem to me a monstrous
excrescence of nature. How express in human language a woe human being
until this hour never knew! How give intelligible expression to a pang
none but I could ever understand!— No one has entered Rome. None will
ever come. I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished,
and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as
delusive, as false, but to which I now cling with the same fond trust.
Winter has come again; and the gardens of Rome have lost their leaves—
the sharp air comes over the Campagna, and has driven its brute
inhabitants to take up their abode in the many dwellings of the
deserted city—frost has suspended the gushing fountains—and Trevi has
stilled her eternal music. I had made a rough calculation, aided by the
stars, by which I endeavoured to ascertain the first day of the new
year. In the old out-worn age, the Sovereign Pontiff was used to go in
solemn pomp, and mark the renewal of the year by driving a nail in the
gate of the temple of Janus. On that day I ascended St. Peter’s, and
carved on its topmost stone the aera 2100, last year of the world!
My only companion was a dog, a shaggy fellow, half water and half
shepherd’s dog, whom I found tending sheep in the Campagna. His master
was dead, but nevertheless he continued fulfilling his duties in
expectation of his return. If a sheep strayed from the rest, he forced
it to return to the flock, and sedulously kept off every intruder.
Riding in the Campagna I had come upon his sheep-walk, and for some
time observed his repetition of lessons learned from man, now useless,
though unforgotten. His delight was excessive when he saw me. He sprung
up to my knees; he capered round and round, wagging his tail, with the
short, quick bark of pleasure: he left his fold to follow me, and from
that day has never neglected to watch by and attend on me, shewing
boisterous gratitude whenever I caressed or talked to him. His
pattering steps and mine alone were heard, when we entered the
magnificent extent of nave and aisle of St. Peter’s. We ascended the
myriad steps together, when on the summit I achieved my design, and in
rough figures noted the date of the last year. I then turned to gaze on
the country, and to take leave of Rome. I had long determined to quit
it, and I now formed the plan I would adopt for my future career, after
I had left this magnificent abode.
A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer, and that I would become. A
hope of amelioration always attends on change of place, which would
even lighten the burthen of my life. I had been a fool to remain in
Rome all this time: Rome noted for Malaria, the famous caterer for
death. But it was still possible, that, could I visit the whole extent
of earth, I should find in some part of the wide extent a survivor.
Methought the sea-side was the most probable retreat to be chosen by
such a one. If left alone in an inland district, still they could not
continue in the spot where their last hopes had been extinguished; they
would journey on, like me, in search of a partner for their solitude,
till the watery barrier stopped their further progress.
To that water—cause of my woes, perhaps now to be their cure, I would
betake myself. Farewell, Italy!—farewell, thou ornament of the world,
matchless Rome, the retreat of the solitary one during long months!—to
civilized life—to the settled home and succession of monotonous days,
farewell! Peril will now be mine; and I hail her as a friend—death will
perpetually cross my path, and I will meet him as a benefactor;
hardship, inclement weather, and dangerous tempests will be my sworn
mates. Ye spirits of storm, receive me! ye powers of destruction, open
wide your arms, and clasp me for ever! if a kinder power have not
decreed another end, so that after long endurance I may reap my reward,
and again feel my heart beat near the heart of another like to me.
Tiber, the road which is spread by nature’s own hand, threading her
continent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. I
would with a few books, provisions, and my dog, embark in one of these
and float down the current of the stream into the sea; and then,
keeping near land, I would coast the beauteous shores and sunny
promontories of the blue Mediterranean, pass Naples, along Calabria,
and would dare the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis; then, with
fearless aim, (for what had I to lose?) skim ocean’s surface towards
Malta and the further Cyclades. I would avoid Constantinople, the sight
of whose well-known towers and inlets belonged to another state of
existence from my present one; I would coast Asia Minor, and Syria,
and, passing the seven-mouthed Nile, steer northward again, till losing
sight of forgotten Carthage and deserted Lybia, I should reach the
pillars of Hercules. And then—no matter where—the oozy caves, and
soundless depths of ocean may be my dwelling, before I accomplish this
long-drawn voyage, or the arrow of disease find my heart as I float
singly on the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I
may find what I seek—a companion; or if this may not be—to endless
time, decrepid and grey headed—youth already in the grave with those I
love— the lone wanderer will still unfurl his sail, and clasp the
tiller—and, still obeying the breezes of heaven, for ever round another
and another promontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still
ploughing seedless ocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native
Europe, adown the tawny shore of Africa, having weathered the fierce
seas of the Cape, I may moor my worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy
groves of the odorous islands of the far Indian ocean.
These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, they came on me, as I
stood on the height of St. Peter’s, they have ruled my imagination. I
have chosen my boat, and laid in my scant stores. I have selected a few
books; the principal are Homer and Shakespeare—But the libraries of the
world are thrown open to me—and in any port I can renew my stock. I
form no expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous
present is intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my
pilots—restless despair and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long
to grapple with danger, to be excited by fear, to have some task,
however slight or voluntary, for each day’s fulfilment. I shall witness
all the variety of appearance, that the elements can assume—I shall
read fair augury in the rainbow— menace in the cloud—some lesson or
record dear to my heart in everything. Thus around the shores of
deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes,
angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eye of the Supreme,
will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney—the LAST MAN.
THE END.