Chapter 25 (13)

3. The Automaton does not invariably win the game. Were the
machine a pure machine this would not be the case—it would always
win. The _principle _being discovered by which a machine can be
made to _play _a game of chess, an extension of the same
principle would enable it to win a game—a farther extension would
enable it to win _all _games—that is, to beat any possible game
of an antagonist. A little consideration will convince any one
that the difficulty of making a machine beat all games, Is not in
the least degree greater, as regards the principle of the
operations necessary, than that of making it beat a single game.
If then we regard the Chess-Player as a machine, we must suppose,
(what is highly improbable,) that its inventor preferred leaving
it incomplete to perfecting it—a supposition rendered still more
absurd, when we reflect that the leaving it incomplete would
afford an argument against the possibility of its being a pure
machine—the very argument we now adduce.

4. When the situation of the game is difficult or complex, we
never perceive the Turk either shake his head or roll his eyes.
It is only when his next move is obvious, or when the game is so
circumstanced that to a man in the Automaton’s place there would
be no necessity for reflection. Now these peculiar movements of
the head and eyes are movements customary with persons engaged in
meditation, and the ingenious Baron Kempelen would have adapted
these movements (were the machine a pure machine) to occasions
proper for their display—that is, to occasions of complexity. But
the reverse is seen to be the case, and this reverse applies
precisely to our supposition of a man in the interior. When
engaged in meditation about the game he has no time to think of
setting in motion the mechanism of the Automaton by which are
moved the head and the eyes. When the game, however, is obvious,
he has time to look about him, and, accordingly, we see the head
shake and the eyes roll.

5. When the machine is rolled round to allow the spectators an
examination of the back of the Turk, and when his drapery is
lifted up and the doors in the trunk and thigh thrown open, the
interior of the trunk is seen to be crowded with machinery. In
scrutinizing this machinery while the Automaton was in motion,
that is to say while the whole machine was moving on the castors,
it appeared to us that certain portions of the mechanism changed
their shape and position in a degree too great to be accounted
for by the simple laws of perspective; and subsequent
examinations convinced us that these undue alterations were
attributable to mirrors in the interior of the trunk. The
introduction of mirrors among the machinery could not have been
intended to influence, in any degree, the machinery itself. Their
operation, whatever that operation should prove to be, must
necessarily have reference to the eye of the spectator. We at
once concluded that these mirrors were so placed to multiply to
the vision some few pieces of machinery within the trunk so as to
give it the appearance of being crowded with mechanism. Now the
direct inference from this is that the machine is not a pure
machine. For if it were, the inventor, so far from wishing its
mechanism to appear complex, and using deception for the purpose
of giving it this appearance, would have been especially desirous
of convincing those who witnessed his exhibition, of the
_simplicity _of the means by which results so wonderful were
brought about.

6. The external appearance, and, especially, the deportment of
the Turk, are, when we consider them as imitations of _life, _but
very indifferent imitations. The countenance evinces no
ingenuity, and is surpassed, in its resemblance to the human
face, by the very commonest of wax-works. The eyes roll
unnaturally in the head, without any corresponding motions of the
lids or brows. The arm, particularly, performs its operations in
an exceedingly stiff, awkward, jerking, and rectangular manner.
Now, all this is the result either of inability in Maelzel to do
better, or of intentional neglect—accidental neglect being out of
the question, when we consider that the whole time of the
ingenious proprietor is occupied in the improvement of his
machines. Most assuredly we must not refer the unlife-like
appearances to inability—for all the rest of Maelzel’s automata
are evidence of his full ability to copy the motions and
peculiarities of life with the most wonderful exactitude. The
rope-dancers, for example, are inimitable. When the clown laughs,
his lips, his eyes, his eye-brows, and eyelids—indeed, all the
features of his countenance—are imbued with their appropriate
expressions. In both him and his companion, every gesture is so
entirely easy, and free from the semblance of artificiality,
that, were it not for the diminutiveness of their size, and the
fact of their being passed from one spectator to another previous
to their exhibition on the rope, it would be difficult to
convince any assemblage of persons that these wooden automata
were not living creatures. We cannot, therefore, doubt Mr.
Maelzel’s ability, and we must necessarily suppose that he
intentionally suffered his Chess Player to remain the same
artificial and unnatural figure which Baron Kempelen (no doubt
also through design) originally made it. What this design was it
is not difficult to conceive. Were the Automaton life-like in its
motions, the spectator would be more apt to attribute its
operations to their true cause, (that is, to human agency within)
than he is now, when the awkward and rectangular manœuvres convey
the idea of pure and unaided mechanism.

7. When, a short time previous to the commencement of the game,
the Automaton is wound up by the exhibiter as usual, an ear in
any degree accustomed to the sounds produced in winding up a
system of machinery, will not fail to discover, instantaneously,
that the axis turned by the key in the box of the Chess-Player,
cannot possibly be connected with either a weight, a spring, or
any system of machinery whatever. The inference here is the same
as in our last observation. The winding up is inessential to the
operations of the Automaton, and is performed with the design of
exciting in the spectators the false idea of mechanism.

8. When the question is demanded explicitly of Maelzel—“Is the
Automaton a pure machine or not?” his reply is invariably the
same—“I will say nothing about it.” Now the notoriety of the
Automaton, and the great curiosity it has every where excited,
are owing more especially to the prevalent opinion that it is a
pure machine, than to any other circumstance. Of course, then, it
is the interest of the proprietor to represent it as a pure
machine. And what more obvious, and more effectual method could
there be of impressing the spectators with this desired idea,
than a positive and explicit declaration to that effect? On the
other hand, what more obvious and effectual method could there be
of exciting a disbelief in the Automaton’s being a pure machine,
than by withholding such explicit declaration? For, people will
naturally reason thus,—It is Maelzel’s interest to represent this
thing a pure machine—he refuses to do so, directly, in words,
although he does not scruple, and is evidently anxious to do so,
indirectly by actions—were it actually what he wishes to
represent it by actions, he would gladly avail himself of the
more direct testimony of words—the inference is, that a
consciousness of its not being a pure machine, is the reason of
his silence—his actions cannot implicate him in a falsehood—his
words may.

9. When, in exhibiting the interior of the box, Maelzel has
thrown open the door No. I, and also the door immediately behind
it, he holds a lighted candle at the back door (as mentioned
above) and moves the entire machine to and fro with a view of
convincing the company that the cupboard No. 1 is entirely filled
with machinery. When the machine is thus moved about, it will be
apparent to any careful observer, that whereas that portion of
the machinery near the front door No. 1, is perfectly steady and
unwavering, the portion farther within fluctuates, in a very
slight degree, with the movements of the machine. This
circumstance first aroused in us the suspicion that the more
remote portion of the machinery was so arranged as to be easily
slipped, _en masse, _from its position when occasion should
require it. This occasion we have already stated to occur when
the man concealed within brings his body into an erect position
upon the closing of the back door.

10. Sir David Brewster states the figure of the Turk to be of the
size of life—but in fact it is far above the ordinary size.
Nothing is more easy than to err in our notions of magnitude. The
body of the Automaton is generally insulated, and, having no
means of immediately comparing it with any human form, we suffer
ourselves to consider it as of ordinary dimensions. This mistake
may, however, be corrected by observing the Chess-Player when, as
is sometimes the case, the exhibiter approaches it. Mr. Maelzel,
to be sure, is not very tall, but upon drawing near the machine,
his head will be found at least eighteen inches below the head of
the Turk, although the latter, it will be remembered, is in a
sitting position.

11. The box behind which the Automaton is placed, is precisely
three feet six inches long, two feet four inches deep, and two
feet six inches high. These dimensions are fully sufficient for
the accommodation of a man very much above the common size—and
the main compartment alone is capable of holding any ordinary man
in the position we have mentioned as assumed by the person
concealed. As these are facts, which any one who doubts them may
prove by actual calculation, we deem it unnecessary to dwell upon
them. We will only suggest that, although the top of the box is
apparently a board of about three inches in thickness, the
spectator may satisfy himself by stooping and looking up at it
when the main compartment is open, that it is in reality very
thin. The height of the drawer also will be misconceived by those
who examine it in a cursory manner. There is a space of about
three inches between the top of the drawer as seen from the
exterior, and the bottom of the cupboard—a space which must be
included in the height of the drawer. These contrivances to make
the room within the box appear less than it actually is, are
referrible to a design on the part of the inventor, to impress
the company again with a false idea, viz. that no human being can
be accommodated within the box.

12. The interior of the main compartment is lined throughout with
_cloth. _This cloth we suppose to have a twofold object. A
portion of _it _may form, when tightly stretched, the only
partitions which there is any necessity for removing during the
changes of the man’s position, viz: the partition between the
rear of the main compartment and the rear of the cupboard No. 1,
and the partition between the main compartment, and the space
behind the drawer when open. If we imagine this to be the case,
the difficulty of shifting the partitions vanishes at once, if
indeed any such difficulty could be supposed under any
circumstances to exist. The second object of the cloth is to
deaden and render indistinct all sounds occasioned by the
movements of the person within.

13. The antagonist (as we have before observed) is not suffered
to play at the board of the Automaton, but is seated at some
distance from the machine. The reason which, most probably, would
be assigned for this circumstance, if the question were demanded,
is, that were the antagonist otherwise situated, his person would
intervene between the machine and the spectators, and preclude
the latter from a distinct view. But this difficulty might be
easily obviated, either by elevating the seats of the company, or
by turning the end of the box towards them during the game. The
true cause of the restriction is, perhaps, very different. Were
the antagonist seated in contact with the box, the secret would
be liable to discovery, by his detecting, with the aid of a quick
car, the breathings of the man concealed.

14. Although M. Maelzel, in disclosing the interior of the
machine, sometimes slightly deviates from the _routine _which we
have pointed out, yet _reeler in _any instance does he _so
_deviate from it as to interfere with our solution. For example,
he has been known to open, first of all, the drawer—but he never
opens the main compartment without first closing the back door of
cupboard No. 1—he never opens the main compartment without first
pulling out the drawer—he never shuts the drawer without first
shutting the main compartment—he never opens the back door of
cupboard No. 1 while the main compartment is open—and the game of
chess is never commenced until the whole machine is closed. Now
if it were observed that _never, in any single instance, _did M.
Maelzel differ from the routine we have pointed out as necessary
to our solution, it would be one of the strongest possible
arguments in corroboration of it—but the argument becomes
infinitely strengthened if we duly consider the circumstance that
he _does occasionally _deviate from the routine but never does
_so _deviate as to falsify the solution.

15. There are six candles on the board of the Automaton during
exhibition. The question naturally arises—“Why are so many
employed, when a single candle, or, at farthest, two, would have
been amply sufficient to afford the spectators a clear view of
the board, in a room otherwise so well lit up as the exhibition
room always is—when, moreover, if we suppose the machine a _pure
machine, _there can be no necessity for so much light, or indeed
any light at all, to enable _it _to perform its operations—and
when, especially, only a single candle is placed upon the table
of the antagonist?” The first and most obvious inference is, that
so strong a light is requisite to enable the man within to see
through the transparent material (probably fine gauze) of which
the breast of the Turk is composed. But when we consider the
arrangement of the candles, another reason immediately presents
itself. There are six lights (as we have said before) in all.
Three of these are on each side of the figure. Those most remote
from the spectators are the longest—those in the middle are about
two inches shorter—and those nearest the company about two inches
shorter still—and the candles on one side differ in height from
the candles respectively opposite on the other, by a ratio
different from two inches—that is to say, the longest candle on
one side is about three inches shorter than the longest candle on
the other, and so on. Thus it will be seen that no two of the
candles are of the same height, and thus also the difficulty of
ascertaining the _material _of the breast of the figure (against
which the light is especially directed) is greatly augmented by
the dazzling effect of the complicated crossings of the
rays—crossings which are brought about by placing the centres of
radiation all upon different levels.

16. While the Chess-Player was in possession of Baron Kempelen,
it was more than once observed, first, that an Italian in the
suite of the Baron was never visible during the playing of a game
at chess by the Turk, and, secondly, that the Italian being taken
seriously ill, the exhibition was suspended until his recovery.
This Italian professed a _total _ignorance of the game of chess,
although all others of the suite played well. Similar
observations have been made since the Automaton has been
purchased by Maelzel. There is a man, _Schlumberoer, _who attends
him wherever he goes, but who has no ostensible occupation other
than that of assisting in the packing and unpacking of the
automata. This man is about the medium size, and has a remarkable
stoop in the shoulders. Whether he professes to play chess or
not, we are not informed. It is quite certain, however, that he
is never to be seen during the exhibition of the Chess-Player,
although frequently visible just before and just after the
exhibition. Moreover, some years ago Maelzel visited Richmond
with his automata, and exhibited them, we believe, in the house
now occupied by M. Bossieux as a Dancing Academy. _Schlumberg_er
was suddenly taken ill, and during his illness there was no
exhibition of the Chess-Player. These facts are well known to
many of our citizens. The reason assigned for the suspension of
the Chess-Player’s performances, was _not _the illness of
_Schlumberger. _The inferences from all this we leave, without
farther comment, to the reader.

17. The Turk plays with his _left_ arm. A circumstance so
remarkable cannot be accidental. Brewster takes no notice of it
whatever beyond a mere statement, we believe, that such is the
fact. The early writers of treatises on the Automaton, seem not
to have observed the matter at all, and have no reference to it.
The author of the pamphlet alluded to by Brewster, mentions it,
but acknowledges his inability to account for it. Yet it is
obviously from such prominent discrepancies or incongruities as
this that deductions are to be made (if made at all) which shall
lead us to the truth.

The circumstance of the Automaton’s playing with his left hand
cannot have connexion with the operations of the machine,
considered merely as such. Any mechanical arrangement which would
cause the figure to move, in any given manner, the left
arm—could, if reversed, cause it to move, in the same manner, the
right. But these principles cannot be extended to the human
organization, wherein there is a marked and radical difference in
the construction, and, at all events, in the powers, of the right
and left arms. Reflecting upon this latter fact, we naturally
refer the incongruity noticeable in the Chess-Player to this
peculiarity in the human organization. If so, we must imagine
some _reversion—_for the Chess-Player plays precisely as a man
_would not. _These ideas, once entertained, are sufficient of
themselves, to suggest the notion of a man in the interior. A few
more imperceptible steps lead us, finally, to the result. The
Automaton plays with his left arm, because under no other
circumstances could the man within play with his right—a
_desideratum _of course. Let us, for example, imagine the
Automaton to play with his right arm. To reach the machinery
which moves the arm, and which we have before explained to lie
just beneath the shoulder, it would be necessary for the man
within either to use his right arm in an exceedingly painful and
awkward position, (viz. brought up close to his body and tightly
compressed between his body and the side of the Automaton,) or
else to use his left arm brought across his breast. In neither
case could he act with the requisite ease or precision. On the
contrary, the Automaton playing, as it actually does, with the
left arm, all difficulties vanish. The right arm of the man
within is brought across his breast, and his right fingers act,
without any constraint, upon the machinery in the shoulder of the
figure.

We do not believe that any reasonable objections can be urged
against this solution of the Automaton Chess-Player.

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 be happy in being
cognizant of all.

AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the
acquisition of knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever
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 for ever 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 method 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 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, 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 for
ever, 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 (for ever) 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 an matter—upward and
onward for ever 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 thing 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

Μελλοντα ταυτα.—SOPHOCLES—_Antig._
“These things are in the near future.”

_ 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 himself 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
up-springing, 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 masterminds appeared, looking
upon each advance in practical science as a retro-gradation 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, when blue rivers ran
undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes,
primæval, 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 omni-prevalent 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 μουσικη 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 rèduit à céder au
sentiment;” and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the
natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old
ascendancy 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 on. 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 history {*2} 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 {*3} 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 us thus 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 midsummer
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
eyelids, 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 recognised 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 the 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 wo. You
alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions
musically about me.

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 mingling
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 room, 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 omni-prevalent—affected me just as violations of
abstract truth were wont, on earth, to affect the moral sense.
Although no two of the time-pieces 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 shock 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
soulless, 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.

THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION

Πυρ σοι προσοισω.
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.
Oh 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 lied 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 interests 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.