Chapter VII: Part II (2)

Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe, and not included among his known writings, the lines entitled "Alone" have the chief claim to our notice. 'Fac-simile' copies of this piece had been in possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication in 'Scribner's Magazine' for September 1875; but as proofs of the authorship claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from publishing it as requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced, and there is, at present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us. "Alone" is stated to have been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore lady (Mrs. Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and the 'fac-simile' given in 'Scribner's' is alleged to be of his handwriting. If the caligraphy be Poe's, it is different in all essential respects from all the many specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of the writer of the heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which the contributor of the poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to speak, "are not unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them."

Whilst Edgar Poe was editor of the 'Broadway Journal', some lines "To Isadore" appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared, saying they were by "A. Ide, junior." Two previous poems had appeared in the 'Broadway Journal' over the signature of "A. M. Ide," and whoever wrote them was also the author of the lines "To Isadore." In order, doubtless, to give a show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his journal over 'noms de plume', and as no other writings whatever can be traced to any person bearing the name of "A. M. Ide," it is not impossible that the poems now republished in this collection may be by the author of "The Raven." Having been published without his usual elaborate revision, Poe may have wished to hide his hasty work under an assumed name. The three pieces are included in the present collection, so the reader can judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be by the author of "The Raven."

* * * * *

PROSE POEMS.

* * * * *

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY.

"Nullus enim locus sine genio est."

_Servius_.

"_La musique_," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux"[1] which in all our translations we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as if in mockery of their spirit--"_la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins_." He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other _talent_, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces _effects_ which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the _raconteur_ has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of _point_, is doubtless the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only, but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,--I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole--a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the _animalculæ_ which infest the brain, a being which we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the same manner as these _animalculæ_ must thus regard us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle--indeed, as far as our judgments extend, the _leading_ principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation [2].

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and gazed _alone._ What flippant Frenchman [3] was it who said, in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that _"la solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose"_? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream.

So blended bank and shadow there,
That each seemed pendulous in air--

so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings [4].

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things. The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude-- wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed.

This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in reverie. "If ever island were enchanted," said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?--or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay," continued I musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black."

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.

[Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived from _moeurs_, and its meaning is "_fashionable_," or, more strictly, "of manners."]

[Footnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise, 'De Sitû Orbis', says,

"Either the world is a great animal, or," etc.]

[Footnote 3: Balzac, in substance; I do not remember the words.]

[Footnote 4:

"Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera."

'P. Commire'.]

* * * * *

THE POWER OF WORDS.

'Oinos.'

Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
immortality!

'Agathos.'

You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded.
Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of
the angels freely, that it may be given!

'Oinos.'

But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of
all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.

'Agathos.'

Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know
all, were the curse of a fiend.

'Oinos.'

But does not The Most High know all?

'Agathos'.

_That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing
unknown even to HIM.

'Oinos.'

But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not _at last_ all things
be known?

'Agathos.'

Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the gaze down
the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them
thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all
points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?--the
walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has
appeared to blend into unity?

'Oinos'.

I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

'Agathos'.

There are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that, of this
infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs
at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever
unquenchable within it--since to quench it would be to extinguish the
soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear.
Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and
swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion,
where, for pansies and violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the
triplicate and triple-tinted suns.

'Oinos'.

And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in the
earth's familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just
now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were
accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is
not God?

'Agathos'.

I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

'Oinos'.

Explain!

'Agathos'.

In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now
throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only
be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or
immediate results of the Divine creative power.

'Oinos.'

Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the
extreme.

'Agathos.'

Among the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

'Oinos.'

I can comprehend you thus far--that certain operations of what we term
Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise
to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the
final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very
successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to
denominate the creation of animalculæ.

'Agathos.'

The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary
creation, and of the _only_ species of creation which has ever been
since the first word spoke into existence the first law.

'Oinos.'

Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst
hourly forth into the heavens--are not these stars, Agathos, the
immediate handiwork of the King?

'Agathos.'

Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the
conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can
perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for
example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so doing we gave
vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was
indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to every particle of the
earth's air, which thenceforward, _and forever_, was actuated by the
one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe
well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid
by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation--so that it
became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given
extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the
atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty; from
a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of
the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results
of any given impulse were absolutely endless--and who saw that a
portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency
of algebraic analysis--who saw, too, the facility of the
retrogradation--these men saw, at the same time, that this species of
analysis itself had within itself a capacity for indefinite
progress--that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and
applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or
applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.

'Oinos.'

And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?

'Agathos.'

Because there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was
deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite
understanding--one to whom the _perfection_ of the algebraic analysis
lay unfolded--there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse
given the air--and the ether through the air--to the remotest
consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed
demonstrable that every such impulse _given the air_, must _in the
end_ impress every individual thing that exists _within the
universe;_--and the being of infinite understanding--the being whom
we have imagined--might trace the remote undulations of the
impulse--trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all
particles of all matter--upward and onward forever in their
modifications of old forms--or, in other words, _in their creation of
new_--until he found them reflected--unimpressive _at last_--back from
the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this,
but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him--should one of
these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his
inspection--he could have no difficulty in determining, by the
analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This
power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection--this
faculty of referring at _all_ epochs, _all_ effects to _all_
causes--is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone--but in every
variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power
itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic Intelligences.

'Oinos'.

But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.

'Agathos'.

In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the general
proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether--which, since it
pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of
_creation_.

'Oinos'.

Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?

'Agathos'.

It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all
motion is thought--and the source of all thought is--

'Oinos'.

God.

'Agathos'.

I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth which
lately perished--of impulses upon the atmosphere of the earth.

'Oinos'.

You did.

'Agathos'.

And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of
the _physical power of words_? Is not every word an impulse on the
air?

'Oinos'.

But why, Agathos, do you weep--and why, oh, why do your wings droop as
we hover above this fair star--which is the greenest and yet most
terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant
flowers look like a fairy dream--but its fierce volcanoes like the
passions of a turbulent heart.

'Agathos'.

They _are_!--they _are_!--This wild star--it is now three centuries
since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my
beloved--I spoke it--with a few passionate sentences--into birth. Its
brilliant flowers _are_ the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its
raging volcanoes _are_ the passions of the most turbulent and
unhallowed of hearts!

* * * * *

THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.

[Greek: Mellonta sauta']

These things are in the future.

_Sophocles_--'Antig.'

'Una.'

"Born again?"

'Monos.'

Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." These were the words
upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the
explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself resolved for me the
secret.

'Una.'

Death!

'Monos.'

How strangely, sweet _Una_, you echo my words! I observe, too, a
vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are
confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal.
Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word
which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew
upon all pleasures!

'Una.'

Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often, Monos, did
we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously
did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, "thus far, and
no farther!" That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned
within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy
in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen with its
strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that
evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus in time it
became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.

'Monos'.

Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una--mine, mine forever now!

'Una'.

But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much to
say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the
incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.

'Monos'.

And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will
be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the weird narrative
begin?

'Una'.

At what point?

'Monos'.

You have said.

'Una'.

Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity
of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with
the moment of life's cessation--but commence with that sad, sad
instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a
breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid
eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.

'Monos'.

One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general condition at this
epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our
forefathers--wise in fact, although not in the world's esteem--had
ventured to doubt the propriety of the term "improvement," as applied
to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the
five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose
some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose
truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious
--principles which should have taught our race to submit to the
guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At
long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance
in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility.
Occasionally the poetic intellect--that intellect which we now feel to
have been the most exalted of all--since those truths which to us were
of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that
_analogy_ which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to
the unaided reason bears no weight--occasionally did this poetic
intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of
the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree
of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct
intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition
of his soul. And these men--the poets--living and perishing amid the
scorn of the "utilitarians"--of rough pedants, who arrogated to
themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the
scorned--these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely,
upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our
enjoyments were keen--days when _mirth_ was a word unknown, so
solemnly deep-toned was happiness--holy, august, and blissful days,
blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest
solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored. Yet these noble
exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by
opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil
days. The great "movement"--that was the cant term--went on: a
diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art--the Arts--arose supreme,
and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated
them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty
of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and
still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a
God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might
be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with
system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities.
Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and
in the face of analogy and of God--in despite of the loud warning
voice of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in
Earth and Heaven--wild attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were
made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil,
Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking
cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath
of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages
of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our
slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have
arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own
destruction in the perversion of our _taste_, or rather in the blind
neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this
crisis that taste alone--that faculty which, holding a middle position
between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely
have been disregarded--it was now that taste alone could have led us
gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure
contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the
[Greek: mousichae] which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient
education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!--since both were most
desperately needed, when both were most entirely forgotten or despised
[1]. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how
truly!--"_Que tout notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au
sentiment;_" and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the
natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency
over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was
not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old
age of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or,
living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for
myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin as
the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our
Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria
the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than
either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these
regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual
artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth,
and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied;
but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration
save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw
that he must be "_born again._"

And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits,
daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the
days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, having
undergone that purification which alone could efface its rectangular
obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure and the
mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at
length a fit dwelling-place for man:--for man the Death-purged--for
man to whose now exalted intellect there should be poison in knowledge
no more--for the redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal,
but still for the _material_, man.

'Una'.

Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the epoch of
the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we believed, and as the
corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in believing. Men lived;
and died individually. You yourself sickened, and passed into the
grave; and thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though
the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up
together once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience
of duration, yet my Monos, it was a century still.

'Monos'.

Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was in
the Earth's dotage that I died. Wearied at heart with anxieties which
had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the
fierce fever. After some few days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium
replete with ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for
pain, while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you--after some
days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless
torpor; and this was termed _Death_ by those who stood around me.

Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of sentience.
It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme quiescence of
him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying motionless and
fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into
consciousness, through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without
being awakened by external disturbances.

I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased to
beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses were
unusually active, although eccentrically so--assuming often each
other's functions at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably
confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense. The
rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my lips to the
last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers--fantastic flowers,
far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we
have here blooming around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless,
offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance,
the balls could not roll in their sockets--but all objects within the
range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less
distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into
the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which
struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance,
this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as
_sound_--sound sweet or discordant as the matters presenting
themselves at my side were light or dark in shade--curved or angular
in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree,
was not irregular in action--estimating real sounds with an
extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had
undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily
received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted always in the
highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers
upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision, at length,
long after their removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight
immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. _All_ my perceptions were
purely sensual. The materials furnished the passive brain by the
senses were not in the least degree wrought into shape by the deceased
understanding. Of pain there was some little; of pleasure there was
much; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs
floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were
appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but they were soft
musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no
intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth; while large and
constant tears which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a
heart which broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy
alone. And this was in truth the _Death_ of which these bystanders
spoke reverently, in low whispers--you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with
loud cries.

They attired me for the coffin--three or four dark figures which
flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my
vision they affected me as _forms;_ but upon passing to my side their
images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other
dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone, habited
in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about.

The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed by a
vague uneasiness--an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when sad real
sounds fall continuously within his ear--low distant bell-tones,
solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy
dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It
oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight, and was
palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike the distant
reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which, beginning with the
first twilight, had grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly
lights were brought into the rooms, and this reverberation became
forthwith interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound,
but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a
great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp (for
there were many), there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain of
melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the bed upon
which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side, breathing odor
from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose
tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with the merely physical
sensations which circumstances had called forth, a something akin to
sentiment itself--a feeling that, half appreciating, half responded
to your earnest love and sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the
pulseless heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and
faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a
purely sensual pleasure as before.

And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there
appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its
exercise I found a wild delight--yet a delight still physical,
inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal
frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no
artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up in the brain
_that_ of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence
even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental pendulous
pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man's abstract idea of
_Time_. By the absolute equalization of this movement--or of such as
this--had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted.
By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel,
and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously
to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion--and
these deviations were omniprevalent--affected me just as violations of
abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense. Although
no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the individual seconds
accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in holding steadily in
mind the tones, and the respective momentary errors of each. And
this--this keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of _duration_--this
sentiment existing (as man could not possibly have conceived it to
exist) independently of any succession of events--this idea--this
sixth sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first
obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of
the temporal eternity.

It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had departed
from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the coffin. The
lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the tremulousness of the
monotonous strains. But suddenly these strains diminished in
distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my
nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer. The oppression
of the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shot like that
of electricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of
the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged in
the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of
duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of
the deadly _Decay_.

Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and the
sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a lethargic
intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the
flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence
of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dully felt that you
sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of the second day came, I was
not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side,
which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the
hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which
heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness
and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.

And here in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose, there
rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched narrowly
each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record of its
flight--without effort and without object.

A year passed. The consciousness of _being_ had grown hourly more
indistinct, and that of mere _locality_ had in great measure usurped
its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of
_place_. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the
body was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often
happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is _Death_
imaged)--at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the deep
slumberer, when some flitting light half startled him into awaking,
yet left him half enveloped in dreams--so to me, in the strict embrace
of the _Shadow_, came _that_ light which alone might have had power to
startle--the light of enduring _Love_. Men toiled at the grave in
which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering
bones there descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void.
That nebulous light had been extinguished. That feeble thrill had
vibrated itself into quiescence. Many _lustra_ had supervened. Dust
had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being
had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead--
instead of all things, dominant and perpetual--the autocrats _Place_
and _Time._ For _that_ which _was not_--for that which had no
form--for that which had no thought--for that which had no
sentience--for that which was soundless, yet of which matter formed no
portion--for all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the
grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.

[Footnote 1:

"It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that
which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and this
may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and
_music_ for the soul."

Repub. lib. 2.

"For this reason is a musical education most essential; since it
causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul,
taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making
the man _beautiful-minded_. ... He will praise and admire _the
beautiful_, will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it,
and _assimilate his own condition with it_."

Ibid. lib. 3. Music had, however, among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the harmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation, each in its widest sense. The study of _music_ was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste--of that which recognizes the beautiful--in contradistinction from reason, which deals only with the true.]

* * * * *

THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION.

I will bring fire to thee.

_Euripides_.--'Androm'.

'Eiros'.

Why do you call me Eiros?

'Charmion'.

So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget, too, _my_
earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.

'Eiros'.

This is indeed no dream!

'Charmion'.

Dreams are with us no more;--but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to
see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has
already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your
allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself
induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.

'Eiros'.

True--I feel no stupor--none at all. The wild sickness and the
terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
rushing, horrible sound, like the "voice of many waters." Yet my
senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception
of _the new_.

'Charmion'.

A few days will remove all this;--but I fully understand you, and
feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you
undergo--yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now
suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.

'Eiros'.

In Aidenn?

'Charmion'.

In Aidenn.

'Eiros'.

O God!--pity me, Charmion!--I am overburthened with the majesty of all
things--of the unknown now known--of the speculative Future merged in
the august and certain Present.

'Charmion'.

Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of this.
Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise
of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward--but back. I am
burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event
which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar
things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so
fearfully perished.

'Eiros'.

Most fearfully, fearfully!--this is indeed no dream.

'Charmion'.

Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

'Eiros'.

Mourned, Charmion?--oh, deeply. To that last hour of all there hung a
cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.

'Charmion'.

And that last hour--speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact
of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among
mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave--at that period, if I
remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly
unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative
philosophy of the day.

'Eiros'.

The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unanticipated; but
analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with
astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you
left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy
writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as
having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in regard to the
immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that
epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of
the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had
been well established. They had been observed to pass among the
satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration
either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We
had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable
tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our
substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not
in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were
accurately known. That among _them_ we should look for the agency of
the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered an
inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been of late days
strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of
the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement
by astronomers of a _new_ comet, yet this announcement was generally
received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it
was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at perihelion
would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were
two or three astronomers of secondary note who resolutely maintained
that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the
effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they
would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so long employed
among worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But the
truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the
understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that
astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its
approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of
very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little
perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase
in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color.
Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, and all interest
absorbed in a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in
respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused
their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned _now_
gave their intellect--their soul--to no such points as the allaying of
fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought--they panted
for right views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. _Truth_ arose
in the purity of her strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise
bowed down and adored.

That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would result
from the apprehended contact was an opinion which hourly lost ground
among the wise; and the wise were now freely permitted to rule the
reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated that the
density of the comet's _nucleus_ was far less than that of our rarest
gas; and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the
satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which
served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness
fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them
to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no previous
instance had been known. That the final destruction of the earth must
be brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit that
enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets were of no fiery
nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a
great measure, from the apprehension of the great calamity foretold.
It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in
regard to pestilences and wars--errors which were wont to prevail upon
every appearance of a comet--were now altogether unknown, as if by
some sudden convulsive exertion reason had at once hurled superstition
from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived vigor from
excessive interest.

What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of elaborate
question. The learned spoke of slight geological disturbances, of
probable alterations in climate, and consequently in vegetation; of
possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held that no visible
or perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While such
discussions were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing
larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind
grew paler as it came. All human operations were suspended.

There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when the
comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any
previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any
lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all the
certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone. The
hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their bosoms.
A very few days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in
sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange
orb any _accustomed_ thoughts. Its _historical_ attributes had
disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous _novelty_ of emotion. We
saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an
incubus upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken,
with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of
rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.

Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear that we
were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even
felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The
exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all
heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our
vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this
predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild
luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out upon every
vegetable thing.

Yet another day--and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was now
evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change had come
over all men; and the first sense of _pain_ was the wild signal for
general lamentation and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a
rigorous construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable
dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was
radically affected; the conformation of this atmosphere and the
possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the
topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric
thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart of man.

It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a compound
of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of twenty-one measures
of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen in every one hundred of the
atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of combustion, and the
vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to the support of animal
life, and was the most powerful and energetic agent in nature.
Nitrogen, on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal
life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been
ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had
latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea,
which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a _total
extraction of the nitrogen_? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring,
omni-prevalent, immediate;--the entire fulfilment, in all their
minute and terrible details, of the fiery and horror-inspiring
denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book.