 Volume 2, Chapter 3 of The Last Man. The stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and tourists high in the southern heaven showed that it was midnight. I awoke from disturbed dreams. Me thought I had been invited to Timon's last feast. I came with keen appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water sent up its unsatisfying steams, while I fled before the anger of the host, who assumed the form of Raymond, while to my diseased fancy the vessels hurled by him after me, were surcharged with fetid vapour, and my friend's shape, altered by a thousand distortions, expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow the sign of pestilence. The growing shadow rose and rose, filling, and then seeming to endeavour to burst beyond — the adamantine vault that bent over, sustaining and enclosing the world. The nightmare became torture, with a strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled reason to her wanted functions. My first thought was Perdita, to her I must return, her I must support, drawing such food from despair as might best sustain her wounded heart, recalling her from the wild excesses of grief, by the austere laws of duty, and the soft tenderness of regret. The position of the stars was my only guide. I turned from the awful ruin of the golden city, and after great exertion succeeded in extricating myself from its enclosure, I met a company of soldiers outside the walls, I borrowed a horse from one of them, and hastened to my sister. The appearance of the plane was changed during this short interval, the encampment was broken up, the relics of the disbanded army met in small companies here and there, each face was clouded, every gesture spoke astonishment and dismay. With a heavy heart I entered the palace and stood fearful to advance, to speak, to look. In the midst of the hall was Perdita, she sat on the marble pavement, her head fallen on her bosom, her hair dishevelled. Her fingers twined busily, one within the other, she was pale as marble, and every feature was contracted by Agony. She perceived me, and looked up inquiringly, her half-glance of hope was misery, the words died before I could articulate them. I felt a ghastly smile wrinkle my lips. She understood my gesture, again her head fell. Again her fingers worked restlessly. At last I recovered speech, but my voice terrified her. The hapless girl had understood my look, and for worlds she would not that the tail of her heavy misery should have been shaped out and confirmed by hard, irrevocable words. Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts from the subject. She rose from the floor. Hush! she said, whisperingly. After much weeping Clara sleeps we must not disturb her. She seated herself then on the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning resting on the beating heart of her raiment. I dared not approach her, but sat at a distant corner, watching her starting in nervous gestures. At length in an abrupt manner she asked, Where is he? Oh, fear not, she continued, fear not that I should entertain hope, yet tell me have you found him? To have him once more in my arms to see him however changed is all I desire. Though Constantinople be heaped above him as a tomb, yet I must find him, then cover us with the city's weight with a mountain piled above. I care not so that one grave hold raiment in his perdita, then weeping she clung to me. Take me to him, she cried, unkind Lionel, why do you keep me here? Of myself I cannot find him, but you know where he lies, lead me thither. At first these agonising plains filled me with intolerable compassion, but soon I endeavoured to extract patience for her from the ideas she suggested. I related my adventures of the night, my endeavours to find our lost one, and my disappointment. Turning her thoughts this way I gave them an object which rescued them from insanity. With apparent calmness she discussed with me the probable spot where he might be found, and planned the means we should use for that purpose. Then hearing of my fatigue and abstinence she herself brought me food. I seized the favourable moment, and endeavoured to awaken in her something beyond the killing torpor of grief. As I spoke my subject carried me away, deep admiration, grief, the offspring of truest affection. The overflowing of a heart bursting with sympathy for all that had been great and sublime in the career of my friend inspired me as I poured forth the praises of Raymond. Alas for us I cried, who have lost this latest honour of the world, beloved Raymond. He has gone to the nations of the dead, he has become one of those who render the darker bowed of the obscure grave illustrious by dwelling there. He has journeyed on the road that leads to it, and joined the mighty of soul who went before him. When the world was in its infancy death must have been terrible, and man left his friends and kindred to dwell, a solitary stranger in an unknown country. But now he who dies finds many companions gone before to prepare for his reception. The great of past ages people in it, the exalted hero of our own days is countered among its inhabitants, while life becomes doubly the desert and the solitude. What a noble creature was Raymond, the first among the men of our time, by the grandeur of his conceptions, the graceful daring of his actions, by his wit and beauty he won and ruled the minds of all. Of one only fault he might have been accused, but his death has cancelled that. I have heard him called in constant of purpose when he deserted for the sake of love, the hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity of purpose. Now his death has crowned his life, and to the end of time it will be remembered that he devoted himself a willing victim to the glory of Greece. Such was his choice he expected to die. He foresaw that he should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome sky, and thy love per dita, yet he neither hesitated or turned back, going right onward to his mark of fame. While the earth lasts his actions will be recorded with praise. Russian maidens will in devotions threw flowers on his tomb, and make the air around it resonant with patriotic hymns in which his name will find high record. I saw the features of per dita soften, the sternness of grief yielded to tenderness. I continued, thus to honour him is the sacred duty of his survivors, to make his name even as an holy spot of ground, enclosing it from all hostile attacks by our praise, shedding on it the blossoms of love and regret, guarding it from decay, and bequeathing it untainted to posterity. Which is the duty of his friends? A dearer one belongs to you per dita, mother of his child. Do you remember in her infancy with what transport you beheld Klara, recognising in her the united being of yourself and Raymond, joined to view in this living temple a manifestation of your eternal loves, even such as she still? You say that you have lost Raymond, oh no! Yet he lives with you, and in you there. From him she sprung flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and not, as heretofore, are you content to trace in her downy cheek and delicate limbs and affinity to Raymond, but in her enthusiastic affections, in the sweet qualities of her mind, you may still find him living, the good, the great, the beloved. Be it your care to foster this similarity, be it your care to render her worthy of him, so that, when she glory in her origin, she take not shame for what she is. I could perceive that when I recalled my sister's thoughts to her duties in life, she did not listen with the same patients as before. She appeared to suspect a plan of consolation on my part, from which she, cherishing her newborn grief, revolted. You talk of the future, she said, while the present is all to me, let me find the earthly dwelling of my beloved, let us rescue that from common dust, so that in times to come men may point to the sacred tomb and name it his, then to other thoughts and a new course of life or what else fate in her cruel tyranny may have marked out for me. After a short repose I prepared to leave her, and that I might endeavour to accomplish her wish. In the meantime we were joined by Clara, whose pallid cheek and scared look showed the deep impression grief had made on her young mind. She seemed to be full of something to which she could not give words, but, seizing an opportunity afforded by Perdita's absence, she preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take her within view of the gate at which her father had entered Constantinople. She promised to commit no extravagance to be docile and immediately to return. I could not refuse, for Clara was not an ordinary child. Her sensibility and intelligence seemed already to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood. With her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by the servant who was to re-conduct her. We rode to the top, Capow. We found a party of soldiers gathered round it. They were listening. They are human cries, said one, more like the howling of a dog, replied another, and again they bent to catch the sound of regular distant moans which issued from the precincts of the ruined city. That Clara I said is the gate that the street which yes demorn your father rode up. Whatever Clara's intention had been in asking to be brought hither it was balked by the presence of the soldiers. With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth of smoking piles which had been a city, and then expressed her readiness to return home. At this moment a melancholy howl struck on our ears. It was repeated. Hark! cried Clara. He is there! That is Florio, my father's dog. It seemed to me impossible that she could recognise the sound, but she persisted in her assertion till she gained credit with the crowd about. At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the sufferer, whether human or brute, from the desolation of the town. So, sending Clara back to her home, I again entered Constantinople. It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchantment of events which restored the lifeless form of my friend to our hands, in that part of the town where the fire had most raged the night before, and which now lay quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raymond crouched beside the mutilated form of its lord. At such a time sorrow has no voice, affliction, tamed by it is very vehemence, is mute. The poor animal recognised me, licked my hand, crept close to its lord, and died. He had been evidently thrown from his horse by some falling ruin which had crushed his head and defaced his whole person. I bent over the body and took in my hand the edge of his cloak, less altered in appearance than the human frame it clothed. I pressed it to my lips while the rough soldiers gathered round, mourning over this worthiest prey of death, as if regret and endless lamentation could re-illumin the extinguished spark, or call to its shattered prison-house aflet of the liberated spirit. Yesterday those limbs were worth and universe. They then enshrined a transcendent power whose intense words and actions were worthy to be recorded in letters of gold. Now the superstition of affection alone could give value to the shattered mechanism, which, incapable and clod-like, no more resembled Raymond than the fallen rain is like the former mansion of cloud in which it climbed the highest skies, and gilded by the sun attracted all eyes and satiated the sense by its excess of beauty. Such as he had now become, such as was his terrine vesture, defaced and spoiled, we wrapped it in our cloaks and, lifting the birthing in our arms, bore it from this city of the dead. The question arose as to where we should deposit him. In our road to the palace we passed through the Greek cemetery, here on a tablet of black marble I caused him to be laid, the cypresses waved high above, their death-like bloom accorded with his state of nothingness. We cut branches of the funereal trees and placed them over him, and on these again his sword. I left a guard to protect this treasure of dust, and ordered perpetual torches to be burned around. When I returned to Perdita I found that she had already been informed of the success of my undertaking. He, her beloved, the soul and internal object of her passionate tenderness, was restored to her. Such was the maniac language of her enthusiasm. What though these limbs moved not, and these lips could no more frame modulated accents of wisdom and love, what though like a weed flung from the fruitless sea, he lay the prey of corruption, still that was the form she had caressed, those the lips that meeting hers had drank the spirit of love from the comingling breath. That was the earthly mechanism of dissoluble clay she had called her own, true she looked forward to another life, true the burning spirit of love seemed to her unextinguishable throughout eternity, yet at this time with human fondness she clung to all that her human senses permitted her to see and feel to be a part of Raymond. Pale as marble, clear and beaming as that, she heard my tale and inquired concerning the spot where he had been deposited. Her features had lost the distortion of grief, her eyes were brightened, her very person seemed dilated. While the excessive whiteness and even transparency of her skin and something hollow in her voice bore witness that not tranquillity but excessive excitement occasioned the treacherous calm that settled on their countenance. I asked her where he should be buried, she replied, at Athens, even at the Athens which he loved, without the town on the eclivity of Hematus, there is a rocky recess which he pointed out to me as the spot where he would wish to repose. My own desire certainly was that he should not be removed from the spot where he now lay, but her wish was, of course, to be complied with, and I entreated her to prepare without delay for our departure. Behold now the melancholy train crossed the flats of Thrace, and whined through the defiles, and over the mountains of Macedonia, coast the clear waves of the Penius, crossed the Larisian plain, passed the straits of Thermopylae, and ascending in succession, Oita and Parnasus, descend to the fertile plain of Athens. Women bear with resignation these long-drawn ills, but to a man's impatient spirit, the slow motion of our cavalcade, the melancholy repose we took at noon, the perpetual presence of the pal gorgeous, though it was, that wrapped the rifled casket which had contained Raymond, the monotonous recurrence of day and night, and varied by hope or change, all the circumstances of our march were intolerable. Perdita shut up in herself, spoke little, her carriage was closed, and when we rested she sat leaning her pale cheek on her white cold hand, with eyes fixed on the ground, indulging thoughts which refused communication or sympathy. We descended from Parnasus, emerging from its many folds, and passed through Livedea on our road to Attica. Perdita would not enter Athens, but reposing at Marathon on the night of our arrival, conducted me on the following day, to the spot selected by her as the treasure-house of Raymond's dear remains. It was in a recess near the head of the ravine to the south of Hermetus, the chasm deep, black, and hoary, swept from the summit to the base. In the fishes of the rock-mirtle Underwood grew the wild time, the food of many nations of bees, enormous crags protruded into the cleft, some beatling over, others rising perpendicularly from it. At the foot of this sublime chasm a fertile laughing valley reached from sea to sea, and beyond was spread the blue aegean, sprinkled with islands, the light waves glancing beneath the sun. Close to the spot on which we stood was a solitary rock high and conical, which divided on every side from the mountain seemed a nature-hewn pyramid, with little labour this block was reduced to a perfect shape, the narrow cell was scooped out beneath in which Raymond was placed, and a short inscription carved in the living-stone recorded the name of its tenet, the cause and error of his death. Everything was accomplished with speed under my directions. I agreed to leave the finishing and guardianship of the tomb to the head of the religious establishment at Athens, and by the end of October prepared for my return to England. I mentioned this to Perdita. It was painful to appear to drag her from the last scene that spoke of her lost one, but to linger here was vain, and my very soul was sick with its yawning to rejoin my idris and her babes. In reply my sister requested me to accompany her the following evening to the tomb of Raymond. Some days had passed since I had visited the spot. The path to it had been enlarged, and steps hewn in the rock led us less circuitously than before to the spot itself, the platform on which the pyramid stood was enlarged and looking towards the south, in a recess overshadowed by the straggling branches of a wild fig tree. I saw foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently the commencement of a cottage. Standing on its unfinished threshold the tomb was at our right hand, the whole ravine and plain and azure sea immediately before us, the dark rocks received a glow from the descending sun which glanced along the cultivated valley and dyed in purple and orange the placid waves. We sat on a rocky elevation, and I gazed with rapture on the beauteous panorama of living in changeful colors, which varied and enhanced the graces of earth and ocean. Did I not do right, said Perdita, in having my loved one conveyed hither? Hereafter this will be the synosure of Greece. In such a spot death loses half its terrors, and even the inanimate dust appears to partake of the spirit of beauty which hallows this region. Lionel he sleeps there, that is the grave of Raymond, he whom in my youth I first loved, whom my heart accompanied in days of separation and anger, to whom I am now joined for ever. Never mark me never will I leave this spot. Me thinks his spirit remains here as well as that dust, which, uncommunicable though it be, is more precious in its nothingness than ought else widowed earth clasps to her sorrowing bosom. The myrtle bushes, the time, the little cyclamen which peep from the fishes of the rock, all the produce of the place spare affinity to him. The light that invests the hills participates in his essence and sky and mountains, sea and valley, are imbued by the presence of his spirit. I will live and die here. Go you to England, Lionel. Return to sweet Idris and dearest Adrian. Return and let my orphaned girl be as a child of your own in your house. Look on me as dead, and truly, if death be a mere change of state, I am dead. This is another world, from that which late I inhabited, from that which is now your home. Here I hold communion only with the has been, and to come. Go you to England, and leave me where alone I can consent to drag out the miserable days which I must still live. A shower of tears terminated her sad harangue. I had expected some extravagant proposition, and remained silent a while, collecting my thoughts that I might the better combat her fanciful scheme. You cherished dreary thoughts, my dear Perdita, I said, nor do I wonder that for a time your better reason should be influenced by passionate grief and a disturbed imagination. Even I am in love with this last home of Romans. Nevertheless, we must quit it. I expected this, cried Perdita, I suppose that you would treat me as a mad, foolish girl, but do not deceive yourself. This cottage is built by my order, and here I shall remain until the hour arrives when I may share his happier dwelling. My dearest girl, and what is there so strange in my design? I might have deceived you. I might have talked of remaining here only a few months. In your anxiety to reach Windsor, you would have left me, and without reproach or contention, I might have pursued my plan. But I disdained the artifice, or rather in my wretchedness, it was my only consolation to pour out my heart to you, my brother, my only friend. You will not dispute with me. You know how willful your poor, misery-stricken sister is. Take my girl with you, wean her from sights and thoughts of sorrow, let infantine hilarity revisit her heart, and animate her eyes. So could it never be where she near me. It is far better for all of you that you should never see me again. For myself I will not voluntarily seek death, that is, I will not while I can command myself, and I can here. But drag me from this country, and my power of self-control vanishes. Nor can I answer for the violence my agony of grief may lead me to commit. You clothe your meaning, Perdita, I replied, in powerful words, yet that meaning is selfish and unworthy of you. You have often agreed with me that there is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life, to improve ourselves and contribute to the happiness of others, and now, in the very prime of life, you desert your principles and shut yourself up in useless solitude. Will you think of Raymond less at Windsor, the scene of your early happiness? Will you commune less with his departed spirit while you watch over and cultivate the rare excellence of his child? You have been sadly visited, nor do I wonder that a feeling akin to insanity should drive you to bitter and unreasonable imaginings. But a home of love awaits you in your native England. My tenderness and affection must soothe you. The society of Roman's friends will be of more solace than these dreary speculations. We will all make it our first care, our dearest task to contribute to your happiness." Perdita shook her head. If it could be so, she replied, I were much in the wrong to disdain your offers, but it is not a matter of choice. I can live here only. I am a part of this scene, each and all its properties are a part of me. This is no sudden fancy, I live by it. The knowledge that I am here rises with me in the morning and enables me to endure the light. It is mingled with my food, which else were poison. It walks, it sleeps with me, for ever it accompanies me. Here I may even cease to repine, and may add my tardy consent to the decree which has taken him from me. He would rather have died such a death, which will be recorded in history to endless time, than have lived to old age unknown and honoured. Nor can I desire better than having been the chosen and beloved of his heart, here in youth's prime before added years can tarnish the best feelings of my nature, to watch his tomb and speedily rejoin him in his blessed repose. So much, my dearest Lionel, I have said wishing to persuade you that I do right. If you are unconvinced, I can add nothing further by way of argument, and I can only declare my fixed resolve. I stay here, force only can remove me. Be it so, drag me away, I return, can find me, imprison me, still I escape and come here. Did my brother rather devote the heartbroken Perdita to the straw and chains of a maniac, than suffer her to rest in peace beneath the shadow of his society, in this my own selected and beloved recess? All this appeared to me, I own, methodised madness. I imagined that it was my imperative duty to take her from scenes that thus forcibly reminded her of her loss, nor did I doubt that in the tranquillity of our family circle at Windsor she would recover some degree of composure and in the end of happiness. My affection for Clara also led me to oppose these fond dreams of cherished grief, and sensibility had already been too much excited, her infant heedlessness too soon exchanged for deep and anxious thought. The strange and romantic scheme of her mother might confirm and perpetuate the painful view of life, which had intruded itself thus early on her contemplation. On returning home, the captain of the steam packet with whom I had agreed to sail came to tell me that accidental circumstances hastened his departure, and that if I went with him, I must come on board at five on the following morning. I hastily gave my consent to this arrangement, and thus hastily formed a plan through which Perdita should be forced to become my companion. I believe that most people in my situation would have acted in the same manner, yet this consideration does not, or rather did not in after time, diminish the reproaches of my conscience. At the moment I felt convinced that I was acting for the best, and that all I did was right and even necessary. I sat with Perdita and soothed her by my seeming assent to her wild scheme. She received my concurrence with pleasure, and a thousand times over thanked her deceiving deceitful brother. As night came on, her spirits, enlivened by my unexpected concession, regained an almost forgotten vivacity. I pretended to be alarmed by the feverish glow in her cheek, and treated her to take a composing draught. I poured out the medicine which she took dociely from me. I watched her as she drank it. Falsehood and artifice are in themselves so hateful that, though I still thought I did right, a feeling of shame and guilt came painfully upon me. I left her, and soon heard that she slept soundly under the influence of the opiate I had administered. She was carried thus unconscious on board, the anchor weighed, and the wind being favourable, we stood far out to sea with all the canvas spread, and the power of the engine to assist. We skedded swiftly and steadily through the chafed element. It was late in the day before Perdita awoke, and a longer time at laps before recovering from the torpor occasioned by the Lordenham, she perceived her change of situation. She started wildly from her couch, and flew to the cabin window. The blue and troubled seas sped past the vessel, and was spread shoreless around. The sky was covered by a rack, in which in its swift motion showed how speedily she was borne away. The creaking of the mast, the clang of the wheels, the tramp above all persuaded her that she was already far from the shores of Greece. Where are we, she cried, where are we going? The attendant whom I had stationed to watch her replied, to England, And my brother is on deck, madam. Unkind, unkind exclaimed the poor victim, as with the deep sigh she looked on the waist of waters, and without further remark she threw herself on her couch, and closing her eyes remained motionless, so that but for the deep sighs that burst from her it would have seemed that she slept. As soon as I heard that she had spoken I sent Clara to her, that the sight of the lovely innocent might inspire gentle and affectionate thoughts, but neither the presence of her child nor a subsequent visit from me could rouse my sister. She looked on Clara with accountants of woeful meaning, but she did not speak. When I appeared she turned away, and in reply to my inquiries only said, You know not what you have done. I trusted that this sulleness be tokened merely the struggle between disappointment and natural affection, and that in a few days she would be reconciled to her fate. When night came on she begged that Clara might sleep in a separate cabin, her servant however remained with her. About midnight she spoke to the latter, saying that she had had a bad dream, and bade her go to her daughter, and bring word whether she rested quietly. The woman obeyed. The breeze that had flagged since sunset now rose again. I was on deck enjoying our swift progress. The quiet was disturbed only by the rush of waters as they divided before the steady keel, the murmur of the moveless and full sails, the wind whistling in the shrouds, and the regular motion of the engine. The sea was gently agitated, now showing a white crest, and now resuming a uniform hue. The clouds had disappeared, and dark ether clipped the broad ocean in which the constellations vainly sought their accustomed mirror. Our rate could not have been less than eight knots. Suddenly I heard a splash in the sea. The sailors on watch rushed to the side of the vessel, with the cry, someone gone overboard. It is not from deck, said the man at the helm. Something has been thrown from the aft cabin. A call for the boat to be lowered was echoed from the deck. I rushed into my sister's cabin. It was empty. With sail the bath the engine stopped. The vessel remained unwillingly stationary, until after an hour's search my pauper detail was brought on board. But no care could reanimate her. No medicine caused her dear eyes to open, and the blood to flow again from her pulseless heart. One clenched hand contained a slip of paper on which was written two Athens. To ensure her removal dither and prevent the irrecoverable loss of her body in the wide sea, she had had the precaution to fasten a long shawl around her waist, and again to the staunchance of the cabin window. She had drifted somewhat under the keel of the vessel, and her being out of sight occasioned a delay in finding her. And thus the ill-starred girl died a victim to my senseless rashness. Thus in early day she left us for the company of the dead, and preferred to share the rocky grave of Raymond before the animated scene this cheerful earth afforded, and the society of loving friends. Thus in her twenty-ninth year she died, having enjoyed some few years of the happiness of paradise, and sustaining a reverse to which her impatient spirit and affectionate disposition were unable to submit. As I marked the placid expression that had settled on her countenance in death, I felt in spite of the pangs of remorse, in spite of heart-rending regret that it was better to die so, than to drag on long, miserable years of repining an inconsolable grief. Stress of weather drove us up the Adriatic Gulf, and our vessel being hardly fitted to weather a storm, we took refuge in the port of Ancona. The year I met Giorgio Palli, the vice admiral of the Greek fleet, a former friend and warm partisan of Raymond, I committed the remains of my lost Perdita to his care, for the purpose of having them transported to himettos, and placed in a cell her Raymond already occupied beneath the pyramid. This was all accomplished even as I wished. She reposed beside her beloved, and the tomb above was inscribed with the united names of Raymond and Perdita. I then came to a resolution of pursuing our journey to England over land. My own heart was wracked by regrets and remorse, the apprehension that Raymond had departed for ever, that his name, blended eternally with the past, must be erased from every anticipation of the future, had come slowly upon me. I had always admired his talents, his noble aspirations, his grand conceptions of the glory and majesty of his ambition, his utter want of mean passions, his fortitude in daring. In Greece I had learnt to love him, his very waywardness, and self-abandonment to the impulses of superstition, attach me to him doubly. It might be weakness, but it was the antipodes of all that was grovelling and selfish. After these pangs were added the loss of Perdita, lost through my own accursed self-will and conceit, this dear one, my soul relation, whose progress I had marked from tender childhoods through the varied path of life, and seen her throughout conspicuous for integrity, devotion, and true affection for all that constitutes the peculiar graces of the female character, and beheld her at last the victim of too much loving, too constant an attachment to the perishable and lost. She, in her pride of beauty and life, had thrown aside the pleasant perception of the apparent world for the unreality of the grave, and had left poor Clara quite an orphan. I concealed from this beloved child that her mother's death was voluntary, and tried every means to awaken cheerfulness in her sorrow, stricken spirit. One of my first acts for the recovery even of my own composure was to bid farewell to the sea. Its hateful splash renewed again and again to my sense the death of my sister. Its roar was a dirge. In every dark hull that was tossed on its inconstant bosom I imaged a beer that would convey to death all who trusted to its treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea. Come, my Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark. Quickly and gently it cleaves the azure serene, and with soft undulation glides upon the current of the air, or, if storm shake its fragile mechanism, the green earth is below. We can descend, and take shelter on the stable continent. Here aloft the companions of the swift winged birds we skim through the unresisting element fleeting and fearlessly. The light-boat heaves not, nor is opposed by death-bearing waves. Beneath the opens before the prow and the shadow of the globe that upholds it shelters us from the noonday sun. Beneath are the plains of Italy or the vast undulations of the wave-like eppennines, fertility reposes in their many folds and woods crown the summits. The free and happy peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double harvest to the garner, and the refined citizens rear without dread the long-belighted tree of knowledge in this garden of the world. We were lifted above the alpine peaks, and from their deep and brawling ravines entered the plain of Fair France, and after an airy journey of six days we landed at Dieppe, furled the feathered wings, and closed the silken globe of our little pinnath. A heavy rain made this mode of travelling now incommodious, so we embarked in a steam packet, and after a short passage landed at Portsmouth. A strange story was rife here. A few days before a tempest-struck vessel had appeared off the town, the hull was parched-blicking and cracked, the sails rent, and bent in a careless, unseaman-like manner, the shrouds tangled and broken. She drifted towards the harbour, and was stranded on the sands at the entrance. In the morning the custom-house officers, together with the crowd of idlers, visited her. One only of the crew appeared to have arrived with her. He had got to shore, and had walked a few paces towards the town, and then, vanquished by Malady in approaching death, had fallen on the inhospitable beach. He was found stiff, his hands clenched and pressed against his breast. His skin nearly black, his matted hair and bristly beard were signs of a long protracted misery. It was whispered that he had died of the plague. One ventured on board the vessel, and strange sights were averted to be seen at night, walking the deck and hanging on the masts and shrouds. She soon went to pieces, I was shown where she had been, and saw her disjoint timbers tossed on the waves. The body of the man who had landed had been buried deep in the sands, and none could tell more than that the vessel was American-built, and that several months before the Fortunatas had sailed from Philadelphia, of which no tidings were afterwards received. End of Chapter 3. I returned to my family estate in the autumn of the year 2092. My heart had long been with them, and I felt sick with the hope and delight of seeing them again. The district which contained them appeared the abode of every kindly spirit. Happiness, love, and peace walked the forest paths and tempered the atmosphere. After all the agitation and sorrow I had endured in Greece, I sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird as the nest in which it may fold its wings in tranquillity. How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted a shelter and tangled themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call life, that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture? To live, according to this sense of the word. We must not only observe and learn, we must also feel. We must not be mere spectators of action, we must act. We must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have been the inmate of our bosoms. Fraud must have lain in wait for us. The artful must have deceived us, sickening doubt and false hope must have checkered our days. To enjoy, that lap the soul in ecstasy must at times have possessed us. Who that knows what life is would pine for this feverish species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days and nights of festivity. I have joined in ambitious hopes and exalted in victory. Now shut the door on the world and build high the wall that is to separate me from the troubled scene enacted within its precincts. Let us live for each other and for happiness. Let us seek peace in our dear home, near the inland murmur of streams and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous resture of earth and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us live life that we may live. Idris was well content with this resolve of mine. Her native sprightliness needed no undue excitement, and her placid heart reposed contented on my love, the well-being of her children and the beauty of surrounding nature. Her pride and blameless ambition was to create smiles in all around her and to shed repose on the fragile existence of her brother. In spite of her tender nursing, the health of Adrien perceptibly declined. Walking, riding, the common occupations of life overcame him. He felt no pain, but seemed to tremble forever on the verge of annihilation. Yet as he had lived on for months nearly in the same state, he did not inspire us with any immediate fear, and though he talked of death as an event most familiar to his thoughts, he did not cease to exert himself to render others happy or to cultivate his own astonishing powers of mind. Winter passed away, and spring, led by the months awakened life in all nature. The forest was dressed in green. The young calves frisked on the new sprung grass. The wind winged shadows of light clouds sped over the green cornfields. The hermit cuckoo repeated his monotonous all hail to the season. The nightingale, bird of love and minion of the evening star, filled the woods with song, while Venus lingered in the warm sunset, and the young green of the trees lay in gentle relief along the clear horizon. Delight awoke in every heart. Delight in exultation, for there was peace through all the world. The temple of universal Janus was shut, and man died not that year by the hand of man. "'Let this last but twelve months,' said Adrien, and earth will become a paradise. The energies of man were before directed to the destruction of his species. They now aim at its liberation and preservation. Man cannot repose, and his restless aspirations will now bring forth good instead of evil. The favoured countries of the south will throw off the iron yoke of servitude. Poverty will quit us, and with that sickness, what may not the forces, never before un-united, of liberty and peace, achieve in this dwelling of man?' "'Dreaming! Forever dreaming, Windsor,' said Ryland, the old adversary of Raymond, and candidate for the protectorate of the ensuing election. "'Be assured that earth is not nor ever can be heaven, while the seats of hell are natives of her soil. When the seasons have become equal, when the air breathes no disorders, when its surface is no longer liable to blights and droughts, then sickness will cease. When men's passions are dead, poverty will depart. When lovers no longer are akin to hate, then brotherhood will exist. We are very far from that state of present. Not so very far, as you may suppose,' observed a little old astronomer, by named Marival. "'The poles proceed slowly, but securely, in a hundred thousand years. We shall all be on the ground,' said Ryland. "'The pole of the earth will coincide with the pole of the ecliptic,' continued the astronomer. "'And Universal Spring will be produced, and earth become a paradise. And we shall, of course, enjoy the benefit of the change,' said Ryland contemptuously. "'We have strange news here,' I observed. I had the newspaper in my hand, and, as usual, had turned to the intelligence from Greece. It seems that the total destruction of Constantinople and the supposition that winter has purified the air of the fallen city gave the Greeks courage to visit its site and begin to rebuild it. But they tell us that the curse of God is on the place, for everyone who was ventured within the walls has been tainted by the plague. But this disease has spread in Thrace and Macedonia, while in now fearing the virulence of infection during the coming heats, a cordon has been drawn on the frontiers of Thessaly, on a strict quarantine exacted. This intelligence brought us back from the prospect of paradise, held out after the lapse of a hundred thousand years to the pain and misery at present existent upon earth. We talked of the ravages made last year by pestilence in every quarter of the world, and of the dreadful consequences of a second visitation. We discussed the best means of preventing infection and of preserving health and activity in a large city thus afflicted—London, for instance. Marival did not join in this conversation. Joining near Idris, he proceeded to assure her that the joyful prospect of an earthly paradise after an hundred thousand years was clouded to him by the knowledge that in a certain period of time after, an earthly hell or purgatory would occur when the ecliptic and equator would be at right angles. Our party at length broke up. We are all dreaming this morning, said Ryland. It is as wise to discuss the probability of a visitation of the plague in our well-governed metropolis as to calculate the centuries which must escape before we can grow pine apples here in the open air. But though it seemed absurd to calculate upon the arrival of the plague in London, I could not reflect without extreme pain on the desolation this evil would cause in Greece. The English, for the most part, talked of Thrace and Macedonia, as they would have a lunar territory which, unknown to them, presented no distinct idea or interest to the minds. I had trod the soil. The faces of many of the inhabitants were familiar to me. In the towns, plains, hills and defiles of these countries I had enjoyed unspeakable delight as I journeyed through them the year before. Some romantic village, some cottage or elegant abode there situated, inhabited by the lovely and the good, rose before my mental sight, and the question haunted me. Is the plague there also? That same invincible monster which hovered over and devoured Constantinople, that fiend more cruel than tempest, less tame than fire, is alas, unchained in that beautiful country. These reflections would not allow me to rest. The political state of England became agitated as the time drew near when the new protector was to be elected. This event excited the more interest, since it was the current report, that if the popular candidate, Ryland, should be chosen, the question of the abolition of hereditary rank and other feudal relics would come under the consideration of Parliament. Not a word had been spoken during the present session of any of these topics. Everything would depend upon the choice of a protector and the elections of the ensuing year. Yet this very silence was awful, shooing the deep weight attributed to the question. The fear of either party to hazard an ill-timed attack, and the expectation of a furious contention when it should begin. But although St. Stephens did not echo with the voice which filled each heart, the newspapers teamed with nothing else. And in private companies, the conversation, however, remotely begun, soon verged toward this central point, while voices were lowered and chairs drawn closer. The nobles did not hesitate to express their fear. The other party endeavored to treat the matter lightly. "'Shame on the country,' said Ryland, to lay so much stress upon words and frippery, and is a question of nothing, of the new painting of carriage panels and the embroiderer-footmen's coats.' Yet could England indeed off her lordly trappings and be content with the democratic style of America? Were the pride of ancestry, the patrician spirit, the gentle courtesies and refined pursuits, splendid attributes of rank to be erased among us? We were told that this would not be the case, that we were by nature a poetical people, a nation easily duped by words ready to array clouds and splendor and bestow honour on the dust. This spirit we could never lose, and it was to diffuse this concentrated spirit of birth that the new law was to be brought forward. We were assured that when the name and title of Englishman was the sole patent of nobility, we should all be noble, that when no man, born under English sway, felt another his superior in rank, courtesy and refinement would become the birthright of all our countrymen. Let not England be so far disgraced as to have it imagined that it can be without nobles, nature's true nobility, who bear their patent in their mean, who are from their cradle elevated above the rest of their species, because they are better than the rest. Among a race of independent and generous and well-educated men, in a country where the imagination is empress of men's minds, there needs be no fear that we should want a perpetual succession of the high-born and lordly. That party, however, could hardly yet be considered a minority in the kingdom who extolled the ornament of the column the Corinthian capital of polished society. They appealed to prejudices without number, to old attachments and young hopes, to the expectation of thousands who might one day become peers. They set up as a scarecrow the specter of all that was sordid, mechanic, and base in the commercial republics. The plague had come to Athens. Hundreds of English residents returned to their own country. Raymond's beloved Athenians, the free, the noble people of the divinest town in Greece, fell like ripe corn before the merciless sickle of the adversary. His pleasant places were deserted. His temples and palaces were converted into tombs. Its energies, bent before towards the highest objects of human ambition, were now forced to converge to one point. The guarding against the innumerous arrows of the plague. At any other time this disaster would have excited extreme compassion among us, but it was now passed over, while each mind was engaged by the coming controversy. It was not so with me, and the question of rank and right dwindled to insignificance in my eyes when I pictured the scene of suffering Athens. I heard of the death of only sons, of wives and husbands most aboded, of the rending of ties twisted with the heart's fibres, a friend losing friend, and young mothers mourning for their first born, and these moving incidents were grouped and painted in my mind by the knowledge of the persons, by my esteem and affection for the sufferers. It was the admirers, friends, fellow soldiers of raiment, families that had welcomed Perdita to Greece, and lamented with her the loss of her lord that were swept away and went to dwell with them in the undistinguishing tomb. The plague at Athens had been preceded and caused by the contagion from the east, and the scene of havoc and death continued to be acted there on a scale of fearful magnitude. A hope that the visitation of the present year would prove the last kept up the spirits of the merchants connected with these countries, but the inhabitants were driven to despair, or to a resignation which arising from fanaticism assumed the same dark hue. America had also received the taint, and were it yellow fever or plague, the epidemic was gifted with a virulence before unfelt. The devastation was not confined to the towns, but spread throughout the country. The hunter died in the woods, the peasant in the cornfields, and the fisher on his native waters. A strange story was brought to us from the east, to which little credit would have been given had not the fact been attested by a multitude of witnesses in various parts of the world. On the twenty-first of June it was said that an hour before noon a black sun arose, an orb the size of that luminary but dark defined whose beams were shadows, ascended from the west. In about an hour it had reached the meridian, and eclipsed the bright parent of day. Night fell upon every country, night, sudden, rayless entire. The stars came out, shedding their ineffectual glimmerings on the light-widowed earth, but soon the dim orb passed from over the sun and lingered down the eastern heaven. As it descended, its dusky rays crossed the brilliant ones of the sun, and detoned or distorted them. The shadows of things assumed strange and ghastly shapes. The wild animals in the woods took fright at the unknown shapes figured on the ground. They fled, they do not wither, and the citizens were filled with greater dread at the convulsion which shook lions into civil streets. Birds, strong winged eagles, suddenly blinded fell in the marketplaces, while owls and bats shooed themselves welcoming the early night. Gradually the object of fear sank beneath the horizon, and to the last shot of shadowy beams into the otherwise radiant air. Such was the tale sent us from Asia, from the eastern extremity of Europe, and from Africa as far west as the Golden Coast. Whether this story were true or not, the effects were certain. Through Asia, from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Caspian, from the Hellespont, even to the Sea of Oman, a sudden panic was driven. The men filled the mosques, the women veiled, hastened to the tombs, and carried offerings to the dead, thus to preserve the living. The plague was forgotten in this new fear which the black sun had spread, and though the dead multiplied, and the streets of Isbahan, of Peking, and of Delhi were strewed with pestilence struck corpses, men passed on gazing on the ominous sky, regardless of the death beneath their feet. The Christians sought their churches, Christian maidens, even at the Feast of Roses, clad in white, with shining veils sought in long procession, the places consecrated to their religion, filling the air with their hymns, while ever and anon from the lips of some poor mourner in the crowd, a voice of wailing burst, and the rest looked up fancying they could discern the sweeping wings of angels who passed over the earth lamenting the disasters about to fall on man. In the sunny climb of Persia, in the crowded cities of China, amidst the aromatic groves of Kashmir, and along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, such scenes had place. Even in Greece, the tale of the sun of darkness increased the fears and despair of the dying multitude. We, in our cloudy isle, were far removed from danger, and the only circumstance that brought these disasters at all home to us was the daily arrival of vessels from the east crowded with emigrants, mostly English. For the Muslims, though the fear of death was spread keenly among them, still clung together, that, if they were to die, and if they were, death would as readily beat them on the homeless sea or in far England as in Persia, if they were to die, their bones might rest in earth made sacred by the relics of true believers. Mecca had never before been so crowded with pilgrims, yet the Arabs neglected to pillage the caravans, but humble and weaponless they joined the procession, praying Muhammad to avert plague from their tents and deserts. I cannot describe the rapturous delight with which I turned from political brawls at home and the physical evils of distant countries to my own dear home, to the selected abode of goodness and love, to peace, and the interchange of every sacred sympathy. Had I never quitted Windsor, these emotions would not have been so intense, but I had in Greece been the prey of fear and deplorable change. In Greece, after a period of anxiety and sorrow, I had seen depart two whose very names were the symbol of greatness and virtue. But such miseries could never intrude upon the domestic circle left to me. While secluded in our beloved forest, we passed our lives in tranquility. Some small change indeed the progress of years brought here. And time, as it is want, stamped the traces of mortality on our pleasures and expectations. Idris, the most affectionate wife, sister, and friend, was a tender and loving mother. The feeling was not with her as with many, a pastime. It was a passion. We had had three children. One, the second in age, died while I was in Greece. This had dashed the triumphant and rapturous emotions of maternity with grief and fear. Before this event, the little being sprung from herself the young heirs of her transient life seemed to have a sure lease of existence. Now she dreaded that the pitiless destroyer might snatch remaining darlings, as it had snatched the brother. The least illness caused throes of terror. She was miserable as she were at all absent from them. Her treasure of happiness she had garnered in their fragile being, and kept forever on the watch lest the insidious thief should as before steal these valued gems. She had fortunately small cause for fear. Alfred, now nine years old, was an upright manly little fellow with radiant brow, soft eyes, and gentle, though independent disposition. Our youngest was yet in infancy, but his downy cheek was sprinkled with the roses of health, and his unwearyed vivacity filled our halls with innocent laughter. Clara had passed the age which, from its mute ignorance, was the source of the fears of Idris. Clara was dear to her, to all. There was so much intelligence combined with innocence, sensibility with forbearance, and seriousness with perfect good humour, a beauty so transparent, united to such endearing simplicity that she hung like a pearl in the shrine of oppositions, a treasure of wonder and excellence. At the beginning of winter, our Alfred, now nine years of age, first went to school at Eaton. This appeared to him the primary step towards manhood, and he was proportionably pleased. Community of study and amusement developed the best parts of his character, his steady perseverance, generosity, and well-governed firmness. What deep and sacred emotions are excited in a father's bosom, when he first becomes convinced that his love for his child is not a mere instinct, but worthily bestowed, and that others, less akin, participate his approbation? It was supreme happiness to Idris and myself, to find that the frankness which Alfred's open brow indicated, the intelligence of his eyes, the tempered sensibility of his tones were not delusions, but indications of talents and virtues which would grow with his growth and strengthen with his strength. At this period, the termination of an animal's love for its offspring, the true affection of the human parent, commences. We no longer look on this dearest part of ourselves as a tender plant which we must cherish, or a play thing for an idle hour. We build now on his intellectual faculties. We establish our hopes on his moral propensities. His weakness still imparts anxiety to this feeling. His ignorance prevents entire intimacy, but we begin to respect the future man, and to endeavour to secure his esteem, even as if he were, are equal. What can a parent have more at heart than the good opinion of his child? In all our transactions with him, our honour must be inviolate, the integrity of our relations untainted. Fate and circumstance may, when he arrives at maturity, separate us for ever, but as his age is in danger, his consolation and hardship, let the ardent youth for ever bear with him through the rough path of life, love and honour for his parents. We had lived so long in the vicinity of Eaton that its population of young folks was well known to us. Many of them had been Alfred's playmates before they became his school fellows. We now watched this youthful congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the difference of character among the boys and endeavour to read the future man and the stripling. There is nothing more lovely to which the heart more yearns than a free-spirited boy, gentle, brave and generous. Several of the Eatonians had these characteristics. All were distinguished by a sense of honour and spirit of enterprise. In some, as they verged towards manhood, this degenerated into presumption, but the younger ones, lads a little older than our own, were conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions. Here were the future governors of England. The men who, when our ardour was cold and our projects completed or destroyed forever. When our drama acted, we doffed the garb of the hour and assumed the uniform of age or of more equalising death. Here were the beings who were to carry on the vast machine of society. Here were the lovers, husbands, fathers. Here the landlord, the politician, the soldier. Some fancied that they were even now ready to appear on the stage, eager to make one among the dramatis personae of active life. It was not long since I was like one of these beardless aspirants. When my boy shall have obtained the place I now hold, I shall have tottered into a gray-headed wrinkled old man, strange system, riddle of the sphinx most awestriking, that thus man remains, while we the individuals pass away. Such is, to borrow the words of an eloquent and philosophic writer, the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts, wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom molding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old or middle-aged or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Willingly do I give place to thee, dear Alfred, advance offspring of tender love, child of our hopes, advance a soldier on the road to which I have been the pioneer. I will make way for thee. I have already put off the carelessness of childhood, the unlined brow and springy gate of early years that they may adorn thee. Advance, and I will despoil myself still further for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of maturity, shall take the fire from my eyes, an agility for my limbs, shall steal the better part of life, eager expectation, impassionate love, and shower them in double portion on thy dear head. Advance, avail thyself of the gift, thou and thy comrades, and in the drama you are about to act. Do not disgrace those who taught you to enter on the stage, and to pronounce becomingly the parts assigned to you. May your progress be uninterrupted and secure. Born during the spring tide of the hopes of man, may you lead up the summer to which no winter may succeed. End of Chapter 4. Volume 2, Chapter 5, The Last Man. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Maddox. The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly. Volume 2, Chapter 5. Some disorder had surely crept into the course of the elements, destroying their benignant influence. The wind, prince of air, raged through his kingdom, lashing the sea into fury, and subduing the rebel earth into some sort of obedience. The God sends down his angry plagues from high. Famine and pestilence and heaps they die. Again, in vengeance of his wrath, he falls. On their great host and breaks their tottering walls, arrests their navies on the ocean's plain, and whelms their strength with mountains of the main. Their deadly power shook the flourishing countries of the south. And during winter, even we, in our northern retreat, begin to quake under their ill effects. That fable is unjust, which gives the superiority to the sun over the wind. Who has not seen the lights of earth, the balmy atmosphere, and basking nature become dark, cold, and ungenial? When the sleeping wind has awoke in the east, or when the done clouds thickly veil the sky, while the exhaustless stores of rain are poured down until the dank earth refusing to imbibe the superabundant moisture, it lies in pools on the surface. When the torch of day seems like a meteor to be quenched, who has not seen the clouds stirring north arise? The streaked blue appear, and soon an opening made in the vapors in the eye of the wind, through which the bright azure shines. The clouds become thin, and arc is formed forever rising upwards, till the universal cope being unveiled, the sun pours forth its rays, reanimated and fed by the breeze. Then mighty art thou a wind to be thrown above all other vice-garants of nature's power. Whether thou comest destroying from the east, or pregnant with elementary life from the west, thee the clouds obey, the sun is subservient to thee, the shoreless ocean is thy slave. Thou sweepest over the earth and oaks, the growth of centuries, submit to thy viewless acts. The snowdrift is scattered on the pinnacles of the Alps, the avalanche thunders down their valleys. Thou holdest the keys of the frost, and canst first chain, and then set free the streams. Under thy gentle governance, the buds and leaves are born. They flourish, nursed by thee. Why dost thou howl thus a wind, by day and by night? For four long months thy roaring's have not ceased. The shores of the sea are strewn with wrecks. Its nil welcoming surface has become impassable. The earth has shed her beauty in obedience to thy command. The frail balloon dares no longer sell on the agitated air. Thy ministers, the clouds deluge the land with rain. Rivers forsake their banks. The wild torrent tears up the mountain path, plain and wood. And verdant dell are despoiled of their loveliness. Our very cities are wasted by thee. Alas, what will become of us? It seems as if the giant waves of ocean and vast arms of the sea were about to wrench the deep-rooted island from its center and cast it, a ruin and a wreck upon the fields of the Atlantic. What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many, that people in infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity. The visible mechanism of our being is subject to nearest accident. Day by day we are forced to believe this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who disappears from apparent life under the influence of the hostile agency at work around us, had the same powers as I. I also am subject to the same laws. In the face of all this, we call ourselves lords of the creation, welders of the elements, masters of life and death, and we allege in excuse of this arrogance that though the individual is destroyed, man continues forever. Thus losing our identity, that of which we are chiefly conscious, we glory in the continuity of our species and learn to regard death without terror. But when any whole nation becomes the victim of the destructive powers of exterior agents, then indeed man shrinks into insignificance, he fills his tenure of life insecure, his inheritance on earth cut off. I remember after having witnessed the destructive effects of a fire, I could not even behold a small one in a stove without a sensation of fear. The mounting flames had curled around the building as it fell, and was destroyed. They insinuated themselves into the substances about them, and the impediments to their progress yielded at their touch. Could we take integral parts of this power and not be subject to its operation? Could we domesticate a cub of this wild beast and not fear its growth and maturity? Thus we begin to fill with regard to many visaged death, let loose on the chosen districts of our fair habitation, and above all with regard to the plague. We fear the coming summer, nations bordering on the already infected countries, begin to enter upon serious plans for the better keeping out of the enemy. We, a commercial people, were obliged to bring such schemes under consideration, and the question of contagion became matter of earnest disquisition. That the plague was not what is commonly called contagious, like the scarlet fever or extinct smallpox was proved, it was called an epidemic. But the grand question was still unsettled of how this epidemic was generated and increased. If infection depended upon the air, the air was subject to infection, as for instance a typhus fever has been brought by ships to one seaport town, yet the very people who brought it there were incapable of communicating it in a town more fortunately situated. But how are we to judge of airs and pronounce in such a city plague will die unproductive, and such another nature has provided for it a plentiful harvest? In the same way individuals may escape 99 times and receive the death blow at the hundredth, because bodies are sometimes in a state to reject the infection of malady and at others thirsty and bybit. These reflections made our legislators pause before they could decide on the laws to be put in force. The evil was so widespread, so violent and immeasurable that no care, no prevention could be judged superfluous, which even added a chance to our escape. These were questions of prudence. There was no immediate necessity for an earnest caution. England was still secure. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain were interposed, walls yet without a breach between us and the plague. Our vessels truly were the sport of winds and waves, even as gulliver was the toy of the Brab Dignasians, but we on our stable abode could not be hurt in life or limb by these eruptions of nature. We could not fear, we did not, yet a feeling of awe, a breathless sentiment of wonder, a painful sense of the degradation of humanity, was introduced into every heart. Nature, our mother, and her friend, had turned on us a brow of menace. She showed us plainly that though she permitted us to assign her laws and subdue her apparent powers, yet if she put forth a finger, we must quake. She could take out her globe, fringe with mountains girded by atmosphere containing the condition of our being and all that man's mind could invent or his force achieve, she could take the ball in her hand and cast it into space where life would be drunk up and man and all his efforts forever annihilated. These speculations were rife among us, yet not the less we proceeded in our daily occupations and our plans, whose accomplishment demanded the lapse of many years. No voice was heard telling us to hold. When foreign distresses came to be felt by us through the channels of commerce, we set ourselves to apply remedies. Subscriptions were made for the immigrants and merchants bankrupt by the failure of trade. The English spirit awoke to its full activity and, as it had ever done, set itself to resist the evil and to stand in the breach which diseased nature had suffered chaos and death to make in the bounds and banks which had hitherto kept them out. At the commencement of summer, we began to feel that the mischief which had taken place in distant countries was greater than we had at first suspected. Cuito was destroyed by an earthquake. Mexico laid waste by the united effects of storm, pestilence and famine. Crowds of immigrants indated the west of Europe and our island had become the refuge of thousands. In the meantime, Rylan had been chosen protector. He had sought this office with eagerness under the idea of turning his whole forces to the suppression of the privileged orders of our community. His measures were thwarted and his schemes interrupted by this new state of things. Many of the foreigners were utterly destitute and their increasing numbers at length forbade a recourse to the usual modes of relief. Trade was stopped by the failure of the interchange of cargoes usual between us and America, India, Egypt and Greece. A sudden break was made to the routine of our lives. In vain, our protector and his partisans sought to conceal this truth. In vain, day after today, he appointed a period for the discussion of the new laws concerning hereditary rank and privilege. In vain, he endeavored to represent the evil as partial and temporary. These disasters came home to so many bosoms and through the various channels of commerce were carried so entirely into every class and division of the community that of necessity they became the first question in the state, the chief subjects to which we must turn our attention. Can it be true, each asked the other with wonder and dismay, that whole countries are laid waste, whole nations annihilated by these disorders in nature, the vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindustan, the crowded abodes of the Chinese are menaced with utter ruin, where late the busy multitudes assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of wailing and misery is heard, the air is empoisoned and each human being in hell's death, even while in youth and health their hopes are in the flower. We called to mind the plague of 1348 when it was calculated that a third of mankind had been destroyed, as yet Western Europe was uninfected. Would it always be so? Oh yes, it would countrymen, fear not, in the still and cultivated wilds of America, what wonder that among its other giant destroyers plague should be numbered? It is of old a native of the east, sister of the tornado, the earthquake and the sun. Child of the sun, nursing of the tropics, it would expire in these climes. It drinks the dark blood of the inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the pale face kelt. If perchance some stricken asiatic came among us, plague dies with him, uncommunicated and noxious. Let us weep for our brethren, though we can never experience their reverse. Let us lament over and assist the children of the garden of the earth. Late we envied their abodes, their spicy groves, fertile plains and abundant loveliness, but in this mortal life extremes are always matched. The thorn grows with the rose, the poisoned tree and the cinnamon mingle their boughs. Persia with its cloth of gold, marble halls and infinite wealth is now a tomb. The tent of the Arab is fallen in the sands and his horse spurns the ground and bridled and unsaddled. The voice of lamentation fills the valley of Kashmir. Its dels and woods, its cool fountains and gardens of roses are polluted by the dead. In Circassia and Georgia, the spirit of beauty weeps over the ruin of its favorite temple, the form of woman. Our own distresses, though they were occasioned by the fictitious reciprocity of commerce increased in due proportion. Bankers, merchants and manufacturers whose trade depended on exports and interchange of wealth became bankrupt. Such things when they happen singly affect only the immediate parties, but the prosperity of the nation was now shaken by frequent and extensive losses. Families bred in opulence and luxury were reduced to beggary. The very state of peace in which we gloried was injurious. There were no means of employing the idol or of sending any over-plus population out of the country. Even the source of colonies was dried up. For in New Holland, Van Diemen's land, and the Cape of Good Hope, plague raged. Oh, for some mechanical vial to purge unwholesome nature and bring back the earth to its accustomed health. Rylan was a man of strong intellects and quick and sound decision in the usual course of things, but he stood aghast at the multitude of evils that gathered around us. Must he tax the land in interest to assist our commercial population? To do this, he must gain the favor of the chief landholders, the nobility of the country, and these were his vowed enemies. He must conciliate them by abandoning his favorite scheme of equalization. He must confirm them in their manneral rites. He must sell his cherished plans for the permanent good of his country for temporary relief. He must aim no more at the dear object of his ambition. Throwing his arms aside, he must for present ends give up the ultimate object of his endeavors. He came to Windsor to consult with us. Every day, added to his difficulties, the arrival of fresh vessels with immigrants, the total cessation of commerce, the starving multitude that thronged around the palace of the protectorate, were circumstances not to be tampered with. The blow was struck. The aristocracy obtained all they wished, and they subscribed to a 12-months bill, which levied 20% on all the rent rolls of the country. Calm was now restored to the metropolis and to the populous cities before driven to desperation, and we returned to the consideration of distant calamities, wondering if the future would bring any alleviation to their excess. It was August, so there could be small hope of relief during the heat. On the contrary, the disease gained virulence. While starvation did its accustomed work, thousands died unlamented. For beside the yet warm corpse, the mourner was stretched, made mute by death. On the 18th of this month, news arrived in London that the plague was in France and Italy. These tidings were at first whispered about town, but no one dared express aloud the soul-quailing intelligence. When anyone met a friend in the street, he only cried as he hurried on. You know, while the other, with an ejaculation of fear and horror, would answer, what will become of us? At length it was mentioned in the newspapers. The paragraph was inserted in an obscure part. We regret to state that there can be no longer a doubt of the plague having been introduced at Leghorn, Genoa, and Merseys. No word of comment followed, and reader made his own fearful one. We were as a man who hears that his house is burning, and yet hurries through the streets, born along by a lurking hope of a mistake till he turns the corner and sees his sheltering roof enveloped in a flame. Before it had been a rumor, but now in words unerasable, in definite and undeniable print, the knowledge went forth. Its obscurity of situation rendered it the more conspicuous. The diminutive letters grew gigantic to the bewildered eye of fear. They seemed graven with a pen of iron, impressed by fire, woven in the clouds, stamped on the very front of the universe. The English, whether travelers or residents, came pouring in one great revoltsive stream. Back on their own country and with them crowds of Italians and Spaniards, our little island was filled even to bursting. At first, an unusual quantity of species made its appearance with the immigrants, but these people had no means of receiving back into their hands what they spent among us. With the advance of summer and the increase of distemper, rents were unpaid, and their remittances failed them. It was impossible to see these crowds of wretched, perishing creatures, late nurslings of luxury, and not stretched out a hand to save them. As at the conclusion of the 18th century, the English unlocked their hospitable store for the relief of those driven from their homes by political revolution. So now they were not backward in affording aid to the victims of a more widespreading calamity. We had many foreign friends whom we eagerly sought out and relieved from dreadful penery. Our castle became an asylum for the unhappy. A little population occupied its halls. The revenue of its possessor, which had always found a mode of expenditure congenial to his generous nature, was now attended to more parsimoniously, that it might embrace a wider portion of utility. It was not, however, money except partially, but the necessities of life that became scarce. It was difficult to find an immediate remedy. The usual one of imports was entirely cut off in this emergency to feed the very people to whom we had given refuge. We were obliged to yield to the plow and to the mattock, our pleasure grounds and parks. Livestock diminished sensibly in the country from the effects of the great demand in the market. Even the poor deer, our enthlered protégés, were obliged to fall for the sake of worthier pensioners. The labor necessary to bring the lands to this sort of culture employed and fed the outcasts of the diminished manufactures. Adrian did not rest only with the exertions he could make with regard to his own possessions. He addressed himself to the wealthy of the land. He made proposals in parliament little adapted to please the rich, but his earnest pleadings and benevolent eloquence were irresistible. To give up their pleasure grounds to the agriculturist, to diminish sensibly the number of horses kept for the purposes of luxury throughout the country were means obvious, but pleasing. Yet to the honor of the English, be it recorded that although natural disinclination made them delay a while, yet when the misery of their fellow creatures became glaring and enthusiastic generosity inspired their decrees, the most luxurious were often the first to part with their indulgencies. As is common in communities, a fashion was set. The high-born ladies of the country would have deemed themselves disgraced if they had now enjoyed what they before called unnecessary the ease of a carriage. Chairs, as in olden time, and Indian palanquins were introduced for the infirm, but else it was nothing singular to see females of rank going on foot to places of fashionable resort. It was more common for all who possessed landed property to succeed to their estates, attended by whole troops of the indigent to cut down their woods to erect temporary dwellings and to portion out their parks, parterres and flower gardens to necessitous families. Many of these of high rank in their own countries now with hoe in hand turned up the soil. It was found necessary at last to check the spirit of sacrifice and to remind those whose generosity proceeded to lavish waste that until the present state of things became permanent, of which there was no likelihood, it was wrong to carry change so far as to make a reaction difficult. Experience demonstrated that in a year or two pestilence would cease. It were well that in the meantime, we should not have destroyed our fine breeds of horses or have utterly changed the face of the ornamented portion of the country. It may be imagined that things were in a bad state indeed before this spirit of benevolence could have struck such deep roots. The infection had now spread in the southern provinces of France, but that country had so many resources in the way of agriculture that the rush of population from one part of it to another and its increase through foreign immigration was less felt than with us. The panic struck appeared of more injury than disease and its natural concomitance. Winter was hailed a general and never-failing physician. The embrowning woods, the swallowing rivers, the evening mists, the morning frosts were welcomed with gratitude. The effects of purifying cold were immediately felt and the lists of mortality abroad were curtailed each week. Many of our visitors left us. Those whose homes were far in the south fled delightedly from our northern winter and sought their native land, secure of plenty even after their fearful visitation. We breathed again what the coming summer would bring. We knew not, but the present months were our own and our hopes of a cessation of pestilence were high. Volume 2 Chapter 6 of The Last Man This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Christine Blashford, www.sidepodcast.com. The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume 2, Chapter 6 I have lingered thus long on the extreme bank, the wasting shoal that stretched into the stream of life, dallying with the shadow of death. Thus long I have cradled my heart in retrospection of past happiness, when hope was. Why not for ever thus? I am not immortal, and the thread of my history might be spun out to the limits of my existence. But the same sentiment that first led me to portray scenes replete with tender recollections now bids me hurry on. The same yearning of this warm panting heart that has made me in written words record my vagabond youth, my serene manhood, and the passions of my soul, makes me now recoil from further delay. I must complete my work. Here then I stand, as I said, beside the fleet waters of the flowing years, and now away. Spread the sail and strain with awe, hurrying by dark impending crags, adorn steep rapids, even to the sea of desolation I have reached. Yet one moment, one brief interval before I put from shore. Once, once again, let me fancy myself as I was in 2094, in my abode at Windsor. Let me close my eyes, and imagine that the immeasurable bowels of its oaks still shadow me. Its castle walls are near. Let fancy portray the joyous scene of the 20th of June, such as even now my aching heart recalls it. Circumstances had called me to London. Here I heard talk that symptoms of the plague had occurred in hospitals of that city. I returned to Windsor. My brow was clouded, my heart heavy. I entered the little park as was my custom, at the Frogmore Gate, on my way to the castle. A great part of these grounds had been given to cultivation, and strips of potato land and corn were scattered here and there. The rooks cored loudly in the trees above, mixed with their horse cries I heard a lively strain of music. It was Alfred's birthday. The young people, the Itonians, and the children of the neighbouring gentry, held a mock fair to which all the country people were invited. The park was speckled by tents, whose flaunting colours and gaudy flags waving in the sunshine added to the gaiety of the scene. On a platform erected beneath the terrace, a number of the younger part of the assembly were dancing. I leaned against a tree to observe them. The band played the wild eastern air of Weber introduced in Ebenhassen. Its volatile notes gave wings to the feet of the dancers, while the lookers on unconsciously beat time. At first the tripping measure lifted my spirit with it, and for a moment my eyes gladly followed the mazes of the dance. The revulsion of thought passed like keen steel to my heart. Ye are all going to die, I thought, already your tomb is built up around you. A while because you are gifted with agility and strength, you fancy that you live, but frail is the bower of flesh that encasques its life. Dissoluble the silver cord that binds you to it. The joyous soul, charioted from pleasure to pleasure by the graceful mechanism of well-formed limbs, will suddenly feel the axeltree give way, and spring and wheel dissolve in dust. Not one of you, O fated crowd, can escape, not one, not my own ones, not my Idris and her babes. Horror and misery! Already the gay dance vanished, the green swad was strewn with corpses, and the blue air above became feted with deathly exhalations. Shrieky clarions, ye loud trumpets howl, pal dirge on dirge, rouse the funereal cords, let the air ring with dire wailing, let wild discord rush on the wings of the wind. Already I hear it, while guardian angels, attendant on humanity, their task achieved, hasten away, and the departure is announced by melancholy strains, faces all unseemly with weeping, forced open my lids. Faster and faster, many groups of these woe-begone cantonances, strunged around, exhibiting every variety of wretchedness, well-known faces mingled with the distorted creations of fancy. Ashy, pale, Raymond and Perdita sat apart, looking on with sad smiles. Adrian's cantonance flitted across, tainted by death. Idris, with eyes languidly closed, and livid lips was about to slide into the wide grave. The confusion grew, their looks of sorrow changed to mockery. They nodded their heads in time to the music, whose clang became maddening. I felt that this was insanity. I sprang forward to throw it off. I rushed into the midst of the crowd. Idris saw me, with light-step she advanced, as I folded her in my arms, feeling, as I did, that I thus enclosed what was to me a world, yet frail as the water-drop which the noonday sun will drink from the water lilies' cup, tears filled my eyes, and want to be thus moistened. The joyful welcome of my boys, the soft congratulation of Clara, the pressure of Adrian's hand, contributed to unman me. I felt that they were near, that they were safe, yet me thought this was all deceit, the earth-wield, the firm and rooted trees moved, dizziness came over me, I sank to the ground. My beloved friends were alarmed. Nay, they expressed their alarm so anxiously, that I dared not pronounce the word plague, that hovered on my lips, lest they should construe my perturbed looks into a symptom, and see infection in my langa. I had scarcely recovered, and with feigned hilarity had brought back smiles into my little circle, when we saw Rylan approach. Rylan'd had something the appearance of a farmer, of a man whose muscles and full-grown stature had been developed under the influence of vigorous exercise and exposure to the elements. This was to a great degree the case, for though a large landed proprietor, yet being a projector and of an ardent and industrious disposition, he had on his own estate given himself up to agricultural labours. When he went as ambassador to the northern states of America, he for some time planned his entire migration, and went so far as to make several journeys far westward on that immense continent for the purpose of choosing the sight of his new abode. Ambition turned his thoughts from these designs. Ambition, which laboring through various lets and hindrances, had now led him to the summit of his hopes in making him Lord Protector of England. His countenance was rough but intelligent. His ample brown and quick grey eyes seemed to look out over his own plans and the opposition of his enemies. His voice was stentorian. His hand stretched out in debate seemed by its gigantic and muscular form to warn his hearers that words were not his only weapons. Few people had discovered some cowardice and much infirmity of purpose under this imposing exterior. No man could crush a butterfly on the wheel with better effect. No man better cover a speedy retreat from powerful adversary. This had been the secret of his secession at the time of Lord Raymond's election. In the unsteady glance of his eye, in his extreme desire to learn the opinions of all, in the feebleness of his handwriting, these qualities might be obscurely traced, but they were not generally known. He was now our Lord Protector. He had canvassed eagerly for this post. His protectorate was to be distinguished by every kind of innovation on the aristocracy. This, his selected task, was exchanged for the far different one of encountering the ruin caused by the convulsions of physical nature. He was incapable of meeting these evils by any comprehensive system. He had resorted to expedient after expedient, and could never be induced to put a remedy in force till it came too late to be of use. Certainly the Rylan that advanced towards us now bore small resemblance to the powerful, ironical, seemingly fearless canvasser for the first rank among Englishmen. Our native oak, as his partisans called him, was visited truly by a nipping winter. He scarcely appeared half his usual height. His joints were unknit. His limbs would not support him. His face was contracted, his eye wandering. Dability of purpose and dastard fear were expressed in every gesture. In answer to our eager questions, one word alone fell, as it were involuntarily from his convulsed lips. The plague. Where? Everywhere. We must fly, all fly, but wither. No man can tell there is no refuge on earth. It comes on us like a thousand packs of wolves. We must all fly. Where shall you go? Where can any of us go? These words were syllable-trembling by the iron man. Adrian replied, Wither indeed would you fly. We must all remain, and do our best to help our suffering, fellow-queachers. Help! said Rylan. There is no help. Great God who talks of help. All the world has the plague. Then to avoid it we must quit the world, observed Adrian with a gentle smile. Rylan grained. Cold drop stood on his brow. It was useless to oppose his paroxysm of terror. But we soothed and encouraged him, so that after an interval he was better able to explain to us the ground of his alarm. It had come sufficiently home to him, one of his servants, while waiting on him had suddenly fallen down dead. The physician declared that he died of the plague. We endeavoured to calm him, but our own hearts were not calm. I saw the eye of Idris wonder from me to her children, with an anxious appeal to my judgment. Adrian was absorbed in meditation. For myself I own that Rylan's words rang in my ears. All the world was infected. In what uncontaminated seclusion could I save my beloved treasures until the shadow of death had passed from over the earth? We sunk into silence, a silence that drank in the doleful accounts and prognostications of our guest. We had receded from the crowd, and ascending the steps of the terrace sought the castle. Our change of cheer struck those nearest to us, and by means of Rylan's servants the report soon spread that he had fled from the plague in London. The sprightly parties broke up, they assembled in whispering groups. The spirit of gaiety was eclipsed, the music ceased, the young people left their occupations and gathered together. The lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits had decorated their tents and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a sin against and a provocative, too, the awful destiny that had laid its palsying hand upon hope and life. The merriment of the hour was an unholy mockery of the sorrows of man. The foreigners whom we had among us, who had fled from the plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum invaded, and fear making them garrulous. They described to eager listeners the miseries they had beheld in cities visited by the calamity, and gave fearful accounts of the insidious and irremediable nature of the disease. We had entered the castle. It drifted at a window that overlooked the park. Her maternal eyes sought her own children among the young crowd. An Italian lad had gotten audience about him, and with animated gestures was describing some scene of horror. Alfred stood immovable before him, his whole attention absorbed. Little Eveline had endeavoured to draw Clara away to play with him, but the Italian's tale arrested her. She crept near, her lustrous eyes fixed on the speaker. Either watching the crowd in the park, or occupied by painful reflection, we were all silent. Rylan stood by himself in an abrasion of the window. Adrian paced the hall, revolving some new and overpowering idea. Suddenly he stopped, and said, I have long expected this. Could we in reason expect that this island should be exempt from the universal visitation? The evil is come home to us, and we must not shrink from our fate. What are your plans, my Lord Protector, for the benefit of our country? For Heaven's love, Windsor cried Rylan, Do not mock me with that title. Death and disease level all men. I neither pretend to protect nor govern a hospital. Such will England quickly become. Do you then intend now in time of peril to recede from your duties? Duties speak rationally, my Lord, when I am a plague-spotted corpse, where will my duties be? Every man for himself. The devil take the protectorship, say I, if it exposes me to danger. Faint-hearted man cried Adrian indignantly. Your countrymen put their trust in you, and you betray them. I betray them, said Rylan. The plague betrays me. Faint-hearted, it is well, shut up in your castle, out of danger, to boast yourself out of fear. Take the protectorship, who will. Before God I renounce it. And before God replied his opponent fervently, Do I receive it? No one will canvass for this honour now. None envy my danger or labours. Deposit your powers in my hands. Long have I thought with death, and much, he stretched out his thin hand. Much have I suffered in the struggle. It is not by flying, but by facing the enemy that we can conquer. If my last combat is now about to be fought, and I am to be worsted, so let it be. But come, Rylan, recollect yourself. Men have hitherto thought you magnanimous and wise. Will you cast aside these titles? Consider the panic your departual occasion. Return to London. I will go with you. Encourage the people by your presence. I will incur all the danger, shame, shame, if the First Magistrate of England be foremost to renounce his duties. Meanwhile, among our guests in the park, all thoughts of festivity had faded, as summer flies are scattered by rain, so did this congregation, late noisy and happy, in sadness and melancholy murmurs break up, dwindling away apace. With the set sun and the deepening twilight the park became nearly empty. Adrian and Rylan were still in earnest discussion. We had prepared a banquet for our guests in the lower hall of the castle, and did the Idris and I repaired to receive and entertain the few that remained. There is nothing more melancholy than a merry meeting thus turned to sorrow. The garl addresses, the decorations, gay as they might otherwise be, receive a solemn and funerial appearance. If such change be painful from lighter causes, it weighed with intolerable heaviness from the knowledge that the earth's desolator had at last, even as an archfiend, lightly overlapped the boundaries our precautions raised, and at once enthroned himself in the full and beating heart of our country. Idris sat at the top of the half-empty hall, pale and tearful she almost forgot her duties as hostess, her eyes were fixed on her children. Alfred's serious air showed that he still revolved the tragic story related by the Italian boy. Evelyn was the only mirthful creature present. He sat on Clara's lap and, making matter of glee from his own fancies, laughed aloud. The vaulted roof echoed again his infant tone. The poor mother, who had brooded long over and suppressed the expression of her anguish, now burst into tears and, folding her babe in her arms, hurried from the hall. Clara and Alfred followed, while the rest of the company in confused murmur, which grew louder and louder, gave voice to their many fears. The younger part gathered round me to ask my advice, and those who had friends in London were anxious beyond the rest to ascertain the present extent of disease in the metropolis. I encouraged them with such thoughts of cheer as presented themselves. I told them exceedingly few deaths had yet been occasioned by pestilence, and gave them hopes as we were the last visited, so the calamity might have lost its most venomous power before it had reached us. The cleanliness, habits of order, and the manner in which our cities were built, were all in our favour. As it was an epidemic, its chief force was derived from pernicious qualities in the air, and it would probably do little harm where this was naturally salubrious. At first I had spoken only to those nearest me, but the whole assembly gathered about me, and I found that I was listened to by all. My friends, I said, our risk is common, our precautions and exertions shall be common also. If manly courage and resistance can save us, we will be saved. We will fight the enemy to the last. Plague shall not find us already prey. We will dispute every inch of ground, and by methodical and inflexible laws pile invincible barriers to the progress of our foe. Perhaps in no part of the world has she met with so systematic and determined in opposition. Perhaps no country is naturally so well protected against our invader. Nor has nature anywhere been so well assisted by the hand of man. We will not despair. We are neither cowards nor fatalists, but believing that God has placed the means for our preservation in our own hands, we will use these means to our utmost. Remember that cleanliness, sobriety, and even good humor and benevolence are our best medicines. There was little I could add to this general exhortation, for the plague, though in London, was not among us. I dismissed the guests, therefore, and they went thoughtful more than sad to await the events in store for them. I now sought Adrian anxious to hear the result of his discussion with Ryland. He had, in part, prevailed the Lord Protector consented to return to London for a few weeks, during which time things should be so arranged as to occasion less consternation at his departure. Adrian and Idris were together. The sadness with which the former had first heard that the plague was in London had vanished, the energy of his purpose informed his body with strength, the solemn joy of enthusiasm and self-devotion illuminated his countenance, and the weakness of his physical nature seemed to pass from him, as the cloud of humanity did, in the ancient fable, from the divine lover of Semmelie. He was endeavouring to encourage his sister and to bring her to look on his intent in a less tragic light than she was prepared to do, and with passionate eloquence he unfolded his designs to her. "'Let me at the first word,' he said, "'relieve your mind from all fear on my account. I will not task myself beyond my powers, nor will I needlessly seek danger. I feel that I know what ought to be done, and as my presence is necessary for the accomplishment of my plans, I will take a special care to preserve my life. I am now going to undertake an office fitted for me. I cannot intrigue or work a torturous path through the labyrinth of men's vices and passions, but I can bring patience and sympathy and such aid as art affords to the bed of disease. I can raise from earth the miserable orphan, and awaken to new hopes the shut heart of the mourner. I can enchain the plague in limits, and set a term to the misery it would occasion, courage forbearance and watchfulness of the forces I bring towards this great work. Oh, I shall be something now. For my birth I have aspired like the eagle, but unlike the eagle my wings have failed and my vision has been blinded. Disappointment and sickness have hitherto held dominion over me. Twin-born with me my wood was forever enchained by the shall-not of these my tyrants. A shepherd boy that tends a silly flock on the mountains was more in the scale of society than I. Congratulate me, then, that I have found fitting scope for my powers. I have often thought of offering my services to the pestilence-stricken towns of France and Italy, but fear of paining you and expectation of this catastrophe withheld me. To England and to Englishmen I dedicate myself. If I can save one of her mighty spirits from the deadly shaft, if I can ward disease from one of her smiling cottages, I shall not have lived in vain. Strange ambition this, yet such was Adrian. He appeared given up to contemplation, averse to excitement, a lowly student, a man of visions, but afford him worthy theme and, like to the lark at break of day arising, from sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate. So did he spring up from listlessness and unprotective thought to the highest pitch of virtuous action. With him went enthusiasm. The high wrought resolved, the eye that without blenching could look at death. With us remained sorrow, anxiety, and unendurable expectation of evil. The man says Lord Bacon, who hath wife and children, has given hostages to fortune. Vain was all philosophical reasoning, vain all fortitude, vain, vain, a reliance on probable good. I might heap high the scale with logic, courage, and resignation, but let one fear for Idris and our children enter the opposite one, and overweight it kicked the beam. The plague was in London, fools that we were not long ago to have foreseen this. We wept over the ruin of the boundless continents of the east and the desolation of the western world, while we fancied that the little channel between our island and the rest of the earth was to preserve us alive among the dead. It were no mighty leap me thinks from Calais to Dover. The eye easily discerns the sisterland. They were united once, and the little path that runs between looks in a map, but as a trodden footway through the high grass. Yet this small interval was to save us. The sea was to rise a wall of adamant, without disease and misery, within a shelter from evil, a nook of the Garden of Paradise, a particle of celestial soil, which no evil could invade. Truly we were wise in our generation to imagine all these things. But we are awake now. The plague is in London, the air of England is tainted, and her sons and daughters strew the unwholesome earth, and now the sea, late our defence, seems our prison bound, hemmed in by its gulfs, we shall die like the famished inhabitants of a besieged town. Other nations have a fellowship in death, but we, shut out from all neighbourhood, must bury our own dead, and little England become a wide, wide tomb. This feeling of universal misery assumed concentration and shape when I looked on my wife and children, and the thought of danger to them possessed my whole being with a fear. How could I save them? I revolved a thousand and a thousand plans. They should not die. First I would be gathered to nothingness. Air infection should come near those idols of my soul. I would walk barefoot through the world to find an uninfected spot. I would build my home on some waved-toss plank, drifted about on the barren, shoreless ocean. I would butake me with them to some wild beasts' den, where a tiger's cubs, which I would slay, had been reared in health. I would seek the mountain eagle's eerie, and live years suspended in some inaccessible recess of a sea-bounding cliff, no labor too great, no scheme too wild if it promised life to them. Oh ye heartstrings of mine, could you be torn asunder, and my soul not spend itself in tears of blood for sorrow? Idris, after the first shock, regained a portion of fortitude. She studiously shut out all prospect of the future, and cradled her heart in present blessings. She never for a moment lost sight of her children, but while they in health sported about her she could cherish contentment and hope. A strange and wild restlessness came over me, the more intolerable because I was forced to conceal it. My fears for Adrian were ceaseless, August had come, and the symptoms of plague increased rapidly in London. It was deserted by all who possessed the power of removing, and he, the brother of my soul, was exposed to the perils from which all but slaves and chained by circumstance fled. He remained to combat the fiend, his side unguarded, his toils unshared, infection might even reach him, and he died unattended and alone. By day and night these thoughts pursued me. I resolved to visit London, to see him, to quiet these agonising throes by the sweet medicine of hope, or the opiate of despair. It was not until I arrived at Brentford that I perceived much change in the face of the country. The better sort of houses were shut up, the busy trade of the town palsied, there was an air of anxiety among the few passengers I met, and they looked wonderingly at my carriage, the first they had seen past towards London, since pestilence sat on its high places and possessed its busy streets. I met several funerals, they were slenderly attended by mourners, and were regarded by the spectators as omens of direst import. Some gazed on these possessions with wild eagerness, others fled timidly, some wept aloud. Adrian's chief endeavour, after the immediate sucker of the sick, had been to disguise the symptoms and progress of the plague from the inhabitants of London. He knew that fear and melancholy forebodings were powerful assistance to disease, that desponding and brooding care rendered the physical nature of man peculiarly susceptible of infection. No unseemly sights were therefore discernable, the shops were in general open, the concourse of passengers in some degree kept up, but although the appearance of an infected town was avoided, to me, who had not beheld it since the commencement of the visitation, London appeared sufficiently changed. There were no carriages, and grass had sprung high in the streets, the houses had a desolate look, most of the shutters were closed, and there was a ghast and frightened stare in the persons I met, very different from the usual business-like demeanour of the Londoners. My solitary carriage attracted notice as it rattled along towards the protectoral palace, and the fashionable streets leading to it were still more dreary and deserted appearance. I found Adrian's anti-chamber crowded, it was his hour-forgiving audience, I was unwilling to disturb his labours and waited, watching the ingress and egress of the petitioners. They consisted of people of the middling and lower classes of society, whose means of subsistence failed with the cessation of trade, and of the busy spirit of money-making in all its branches peculiar to our country. There was an hour of anxiety, sometimes of terror, in the newcomers strongly contrasted with the resigned and even satisfied mien of those who had had an audience. I could read the influence of my friend in their quickened motions and cheerful faces. Two o'clock struck, after which none were admitted, those who had been disappointed went sullenly or sorrowfully away, while I entered the audience chamber. I was struck by the improvement that appeared in the health of Adrian. He was no longer bent to the ground like an overnest flower of spring that's shooting up beyond its strength, his way down even by its own coronal of blossoms. His eyes were bright, his countenance composed, an air of concentrated energy was diffused over his whole person, much unlike its former langer. He sat at the table with several secretaries, who were arranging petitions or registering the notes made during that day's audience. Two or three petitioners were still in attendance. I admired his justice and patience. Those who possessed the power of living out of London, he advised immediately to quit it, affording them the means of so doing. Others whose trade was beneficial to the city, or who possessed no other refuge, he provided with advice for better avoiding the epidemic, relieving overloaded families, supplying the gaps made in others by death. Order, comfort, and even health rose under his influence, as from the touch of a magician's wand. I am glad you are come, he said to me, when we were at last alone. I can only spare a few minutes and must tell you much in that time. The plague is now in progress. It is useless closing one's eyes to the fact that the deaths increase each week. What will come, I cannot guess. As yet, thank God, I am equal to the government of the town, and I look only to the present. Rylan, whom I have so long detained, has stipulated that I shall suffer him to depart before the end of this month. The deputy appointed by Parliament is dead. Another therefore must be named. I have advanced my claim, and I believe that I shall have no competitor. Tonight the question is to be decided as there is a call of the house for the purpose. You must nominate me Lionel, Rylan for shame cannot show himself, but you, my friend, will do me this service. How lovely is devotion! Here was a youth royally sprung, bred in luxury, by nature averse to the usual struggles of a public life, and now, in time of danger, at a period when to live was the utmost scope of the ambitious, he, the beloved and heroic Adrian, made in sweet simplicity, and offered to sacrifice himself for the public good. The very idea was generous and noble, but beyond this, his unpretending manner, his entire want of the assumption of a virtue, rendered his act ten times more touching. I would have withstood his request, but I had seen the good he diffused. I felt that his results were not to be shaken, so with a heavy heart I consented to do as he asked. He grasped my hand affectionately. Thank you, he said. You have relieved me from a painful dilemma, and are, as you ever were, the best of my friends. Farewell, I must now leave you for a few hours. Go you and converse with Rylan, although he deserts his post in London, he may be of the greatest service in the north of England, by receiving and assisting travellers, and contributing to supply the metropolis with food. Awaken him, I entreat you to some sense of duty. Adrian left me, as I afterwards learnt upon his daily task of visiting the hospitals, and inspecting the crowd in parts of London. I found Rylan much altered, even from what he had been when he visited Windsor. Perpetual fear had jaundiced his complexion and shriveled his whole person. I told him of the business of the evening, and a smile relaxed the contracted muscles. He desired to go, each day he expected to be infected by pestilence, each day he was unable to resist the gentle violence of Adrian's detention. The moment Adrian should be legally elected his deputy, he would escape to safety. Under this impression he listened to all I said, and elevated almost to joy by the near prospect of his departure. He entered into a discussion concerning the plans he should adopt in his own county, forgetting, for the moment, his cherished resolution of shutting himself up from all communication in the mansion and grounds of his estate. In the evening, Adrian and I proceeded to Westminster. As we went, he reminded me of what I was to say and do, yet strange to say, I entered the chamber without having once reflected on my purpose. Adrian remained in the coffee-room while I, in compliance with his desire, took my seat in St. Stephen's. They reigned unusual silence in the chamber. I had not visited it since Raymond's Protectorate, a period conspicuous for a numerous attendance of members, for the eloquence of the speakers and the warmth of the debate. The benches were very empty. Those by custom occupied by the hereditary members were vacant, the city members were there, the members for the commercial towns, few landed proprietors, and not many of those who entered Parliament for the sake of a career. The first subject that occupied the attention of the house was an address from the Lord Protector, praying them to appoint a deputy during a necessary absence on his part. A silence prevailed till one of the members coming to me whispered that the Earl of Windsor had sent him word that I was to move his election in the absence of the person who had been first chosen for this office. Now for the first time I saw the full extent of my task and I was overwhelmed by what I had brought on myself. Ryland had deserted his post through fear of the plague, from the same fear Adrian had no competitor. And I, the nearest kinderman of the Earl of Windsor, was to propose his election. I was to thrust this selected a matchless friend into the post of danger impossible that I was cast I would offer myself as candidate. The few members who were present had come more for the sake of terminating the business by securing a legal attendance than under the idea of a debate. I had risen mechanically, my knees trembled, a resolution hung on my voice as I uttered a few words on the necessity of choosing a person adequate to the dangerous task in hand. But when the idea of presenting myself in the room of my friend intruded, the load of doubt and pain was taken from off me. My words flowed spontaneously, my utterance was firm and quick, I adverted to what Adrian had already done. I promised the same vigilance in furthering all his views. I drew a touching picture of his vacillating health. I boasted of my own strength. I prayed them to save even from himself this sion of the noblest family in England. My alliance with him was the pledge of my sincerity, my union with his sister, my children, his presumptive heirs were the hostages of my truth. This unexpected turn in the debate was quickly communicated to Adrian. He hurried in and witnessed the termination of my impassioned harang. I did not see him, my soul was in my words, my eyes could not perceive that which was, while a vision of Adrian's form tainted by pestilence and sinking in death floated before them. He seized my hand as I concluded. Unkind, he cried, you have betrayed me. Then, springing forwards with the heir of one who had a right to command, he claimed the place of deputy as his own. He had bought it, he said, with danger and paid for it with toil. His ambition rested there, and after an interval devoted to the interests of his country, was I to step in and reap the profit? Let them remember what London had been when he arrived. The panic that prevailed brought famine. While every moral and legal tie was loosened, he had restored order. This had been a work which required perseverance, patience and energy, and he had neither slept nor waked but for the good of his country. Would they dare wrong him thus? Would they rest his hard earned reward for him to bestow it on one who never having mingled in public life? Would come a Tyro to the craft in which he was an adept? He demanded the place of deputy as his right. Ryland had shown that he preferred him, never before had he who was born even to the inheritance of the throne of England, never had he asked favour or honour from those now his equals, but who might have been his subjects? Would they refuse him? Could they thrust back from the path of distinction and laudable ambition, the heir of their ancient kings, and heap another disappointment on a fallen house? No one had ever before had Adrian allude to the rights of his ancestors. None had ever before suspected that power or the suffrage of the many could in any manner become dear to him. He had begun his speech with vehemence. He ended with unassuming gentleness, making his appeal with the same humility as if he had asked to be the first in wealth, honour, and power among Englishmen, and not as was the truth to be the foremost in the ranks of loads from toils and inevitable death. A murmur of approbation rose after his speech. I will do not listen to him, I cried. He speaks false, false to himself. I was interrupted, and silence being restored, we were ordered, as was the custom, to retire during the decision of the house. I fancied that they hesitated and that there was some hope for me. I was mistaken. Hardly had we quitted the chamber before Adrian was recalled and installed in his office of Lord Deputy to the Protector. We returned together to the palace. Why, Lionel, said Adrian, what did you intend? You could not hope to conquer, and yet you gave me the pain of a triumph over my dearest friend. This is mockery, I replied. You devote yourself you, the adored brother of Idris, the being of all the world contains dearest to our hearts. You devote yourself to an early death. I would have prevented this. My death would be a small evil, or rather I should not die, while you cannot hope to escape. As to the likelihood of escaping, said Adrian, ten years hence the cold stars may shine on the graves of all of us, but as to my peculiar liability to infection, I can easily prove both logically and physically that in the midst of contagion I have a better chance of life than you. This is my post. I was born for this, to rule England in anarchy, to save her in danger, to devote myself for her. The blood of my forefathers cries aloud in my veins, and bids me be first among my countrymen, or if this mode of speech offend you, let me say that my mother, the proud queen, instilled early into me a love of distinction, and all that if the weakness of my physical nature and my peculiar opinions had not prevented such a design might have made me long since struggle for the lost inheritance of my race. But now my mother, or if you will, my mother's lessons awaken within me. I cannot lead on to battle. I cannot, through intrigue and faithlessness, rear again the throne upon the wreck of English public spirit. But I can be the first to support and guard my country, now that terrific disasters and ruin have laid strong hands upon her. That country and my beloved sister are all I have. I will protect the first, the latter I commit to your charge. If I survive and she be lost, I will far better dead. Preserve her for her own sake, I know that you will. If you require any other spur, think that in preserving her you preserve me. Her faultless nature, one sum of perfections is wrapped up in her affections. If they were hurt she would droop like an unwatered flaret, and the slightest injury they receive is a nipping frost to her. Already she fears for us. She fears for the children she adores, and for you, the father of these, her lover, husband, protect her, and you must be near her to support and encourage her. Return to Windsor, then, my brother, for such you are by every tie. Fill the double place my absence imposes on you, and let me in all my sufferings here turn my eyes towards that dear seclusion and say, there is peace. End of chapter 6.