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THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.
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[[Greek text:]] Μελλουτα ταυτα [[:Greek text]]
Sophocles — Antig:
These things are in the future.
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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 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. [page
101:]
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 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 [page
102:] 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 [page
103:]
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 xxxxxx [[Greek text]] 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.*
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†
of these regions I met with a ray from the Future. [page 104:]
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 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 [page 105:] 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 [page 106:]
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 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
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 [page 107:] 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-prævalent —
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 [page
108:] 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. [page
109:] 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. |
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