 VII. CHAPTER IX. Half England was desolate when October came, and the equinoxial winds swept over the earth chilling the orders of the unhealthy season. The summer, which was uncommonly hot, had been protracted into the beginning of this month, when on the eighteenth a sudden change was brought about from summer temperature to winter frost. Pestilence then made a pause in her death-dealing career. Gasping, not daring to name our hopes, yet fully into the brim with intense expectation, we stood as a shipwrecked sailor stands on a barren rock islanded by the ocean, watching a distant vessel, fancying that now it nears and then again that it is bearing from sight. This promise of a renewed lease of life turned rugged natures to melting tenderness, and by contrast filled the soft with harsh and unnatural sentiments. When it seemed destined that all were to die, we were reckless of the how and when. Now that the virulence of the disease was mitigated, and it appeared willing to spare some, each was eager to be among the elect, and clung to life with dastard tenacity. Instances of desertion became more frequent, and even murders, which made the hero sick with horror, where the fear of contagion had armed those nearest in blood against each other. But these smaller and separate tragedies were about to yield to a mightier interest. And while we were promised calm from infectious influences, a tempest arose wilder than the winds, a tempest bred by the passions of man, nourished by his most violent impulses, unexampled and dire. A number of people from North America, the relics of that populous continent, had set sail for the East with mad desire of change, leaving their native plains for lands not less afflicted than their own. Several hundreds landed in Ireland about the first of November, and took possession of such vacant habitations as they could find, seizing upon the superabundant food and the stray cattle. As they exhausted the produce of one spot they went on to another. At length they began to interfere with the inhabitants and strong in their concentrated numbers ejected the natives from their dwellings and robbed them of their winter store. A few events of this kind roused the fiery nature of the Irish, and they attacked the invaders. Some were destroyed. The major part escaped by quick and well-ordered movements, and danger made them careful. Their numbers ably arranged. The very deaths among them concealed. Moving on in good order and apparently given up to enjoyment they excited the envy of the Irish. The Americans permitted a few to join their band, and presently the recruits outnumbered the strangers, nor did they join with them, nor imitate the admirable order which preserved by the transatlantic chiefs rendered them at once secure and formidable. The Irish followed their track in disorganized multitudes each day increasing, each day becoming more lawless. The Americans were eager to escape from the spirit they had roused and reaching the eastern shores of the island embarked for England. Their incursion would hardly have been felt had they come alone, but the Irish, collected in unnatural numbers, began to feel the inroads of famine, and they followed in the wake of the Americans for England also. The crossing of the sea could not arrest their progress. The harbors of the desolate seaports of the west of Ireland were filled with vessels of all sizes, from the man of war to the small fishes boat which lay sailorless and rotting on the lazy deep. The immigrants embarked by hundreds, and unfurling their sails with rude hands made strange havoc of buoy in cordage. Those who modestly but took themselves to the smaller craft for the most part achieved their watery journey in safety. Some, and the true spirit of reckless enterprise, went on board a ship of a hundred and twenty guns. The vast hull drifted with the tide out of the bay, and after many hours its crew of landsmen contrived to spread a great part of her enormous canvas. The wind took it, and while a thousand mistakes of the helmsmen made her present her head now to one point and now to another, the vast fields of canvas that formed her sails flapped with a sound like that of a huge cataract, or such as a sea-like forest may give forth when buffeted by an equinoxial north wind. The portholes were open, and with every sea which, as she lurched, washed her decks, they received whole tonnes of water. The difficulties were increased by a fresh breeze which began to blow whistling among the shrouds, dashing the sails this way and that, and rending them with horrid split, and such were as may have visited the dreams of Milton when he imagined the winnowing of the Archfiend's van like wings which increased the uproar of wild chaos. These sounds were mingled with the roaring of the sea, the splash of the chafed billows around the vessel's sides, and the gurgling up of the water in the hold. The crew, many of whom had never seen the sea before, felt indeed as if heaven and earth came ruining together as the vessel dipped her boughs in the waves or rose high upon them. Their yells were drowned in the clamour of elements, and the thunder-rivings of their unwieldy habitation. They discovered at last that the water gained on them, and they betook themselves to their pumps. They might as well have laboured to empty the ocean by bucketfuls. As the sun went down, the gale increased. The ship seemed to feel her danger. She was now completely waterlogged and presented other indications of settling before she went down. The bay was crowded with vessels, whose crews, for the most part, were observing the uncouth sportings of this huge unwieldy machine. They saw her gradually sink, the waters now rising above her lower decks. They could hardly wink before she had utterly disappeared, nor could the place where the sea had closed over her be at all discerned. Some few of her crew were saved, but the greater part, clinging to her cordage amasts, went down with her, to rise only when death loosened their hold. This event caused many of those who were about to sail, to put foot again on firm land, ready to encounter any evil rather than to rush into the yawning jaws of the pitiless ocean. But these were few, in comparison to the numbers who actually crossed. Many went up as high as Belfast to ensure a shorter passage, and then journeying south through Scotland they were joined by the poor natives of that country, and all poured with one consent into England. Such incursions struck the English with a fright, in all those towns where there was still sufficient population to feel the change. There was room enough indeed in our hapless country for twice the number of invaders, but their lawless spirit instigated them to violence. They took a delight in thrusting the possessors from their houses, in seizing on some mansion of luxury where the noble dwellers secluded themselves in fear of the plague, enforcing these of either sex to become their servants and purveyors, till the ruin complete in one place they removed their locust visitation to another. When unopposed they spread their ravages wide. In cases of danger they clustered and by dint of numbers overthrew their weak and despairing foes. They came from the east and the north and directed their course without apparent motive, but unanimously towards our unhappy metropolis. Communication had been to a great degree cut off through the paralyzing effects of pestilence, so that the van of our invaders had proceeded as far as Manchester and Derby before we received notice of their arrival. They swept the country like a conquering army, burning, laying waste, murdering. The lower and vagabondingless joined with them. Some few of the Lord's lieutenant who remained endeavored to collect the militia, but the ranks were vacant. Panics he's done all in the opposition that was made only so to increase the audacity and cruelty of the enemy. They talked of taking London, conquering England, calling to mind the long detail of injuries which had for many years been forgotten. Such vants displayed their weakness, rather than their strength. Yet still they might do extreme mischief which ending in their destruction would render them at last objects of compassion and remorse. We were now taught how, in the beginning of the world, mankind clothed their enemies in impossible attributes, and how details proceeding from mouth to mouth might, like Virgil's ever-growing rumour, reached the heavens with her brow and clasp, Hesperus and Lucifer with her outstretched hands. Gorgon and Centaur, Dragon and Iron Hooft Lion, vast sea-monster and gigantic Idra were but types of the strange and appalling accounts brought to London concerning our invaders. Their landing was long unknown, but having now advanced within a hundred miles of London, the country people flying before them had arrived in successive troops, each exaggerating the numbers, fury and cruelty of the assailants. Tummelt filled the before-acquired streets. Women and children deserted their homes escaping. They knew not whether fathers, husbands, and sons stood trembling, not for themselves, but for their loved and defenceless relations. As the country people poured into London, the citizens fled southwards. They climbed the higher edifices of the town, fancying that they could discern the smoke and flames the enemy spread around them. As winds allay, to a great degree, in the line of March from the west, I removed my family to London, assigning the tower for their sojourn, and joining Adrian acted as his lieutenant in the coming struggle. We employed only two days in our preparations and made good use of them. Artillery and arms were collected. The remnants of such regiments as could be brought through many losses into any show of muster were put under arms, with that appearance of military discipline which might encourage our own party and seem most formidable to the disorganized multitude of our enemies. Even music was not wanting. Banners floated in the air, and the shrill, fife, and loud trumpet breathed forth sounds of encouragement in victory. A practised ear might trace an undue faltering in the step of the soldiers, but this was not occasioned so much by fear of the adversary, as by disease, by sorrow, and by fatal prognostications which often weighed most potently on the brave, and quelled the manly heart to abject subjection. Adrian led the troops. He was full of care. It was small relief to him that our discipline should gain a success in such a conflict. While plague still hovered to equalize the conqueror and the conquered, it was not victory that he desired, but bloodless peace. As we advanced, we were met by bands of peasantry, whose almost naked condition, whose despair and horror told at once the fierce nature of the coming enemy. The senseless spirit of conquest and thirst of spoil blinded them, while with insane fury they deluged the country and ruined. The sight of the military restored hope to those who fled, and revenged a place of fear. They inspired the soldiers with the same sentiment. Langer was changed to Arder, the slow step converted to a speedy pace, while the hollow murmur of the multitude, inspired by one feeling and that deadly, filled the air, drowning the clang of arms and sound of music. Adrian perceived the change, and feared that it would be difficult to prevent them from wreaking their utmost fury on the Irish. He rode through the lines, charging the officers to restrain the troops, exhorting the soldiers restoring order, and quieting, in some degree, the violent agitation that swelled every bosom. We first came upon a few stragglers of the Irish at St. Albans. They retreated, and joining others of their companions still fell back, till they reached the main body. Tidings of an armed and regular opposition recalled them to a sort of order. They made Buckingham their headquarters, and scouts were sent out to ascertain our situation. We remained for the night at Luton. In the morning a simultaneous movement caused us each to advance. It was early dawn, and the air impregnated with freshest odor, seemed in idle mockery to play with our banners, and bore onwards towards the enemy the music of the bands, the neighings of the horses, and regular steps of the infantry. The first sound of martial instruments that came upon our undisciplined foe inspired surprise, not unmingled with dread. It spoke of other days, of days of conquered and order. It was associated with times when plague was not, and man lived beyond the shadow of imminent fate. The pause was momentary. Soon we heard their disorderly clamour, the barbarian shouts, the untimed step of thousands coming on in disarray. Their troops now came pouring on us from the open country on narrow lanes, a large extent of unenclosed fields lay between us. We advanced to the middle of this, and then made a halt. Being somewhat on superior ground, we could discern the space they covered. When their leaders perceived us drawn out in opposition, they also gave the word to halt, and endeavored to form their men into some imitation of military discipline. The first ranks had muskets, some were mounted, but their arms were such as they had seized during their advance, their horses, those they had taken from the peasantry. There was no uniformity and little obedience, but their shouts and wild gestures showed the untamed spirit that inspired them. Our soldiers received the word and advanced to quickest time, but in perfect order, their uniformed dresses, the gleam of their polished arms, their silence, and looks of sullen hate were more appalling than the savage clamour of our enumerous foe. Thus coming nearer and nearer each other, the howls and shouts of the Irish increased. The English proceeded in obedience to their officers, until they came near enough to distinguish the faces of their enemies. The sight inspired them with fury, with one cry that rent heaven and was re-echoed by the furthest lines. They rushed on, they disdain the use of the bullet, but with fixed bayonet dashed among the opposing foe, while the ranks opening at intervals the matchmen lighted the canon, whose deafening roar and blinding smoke filled up the horror of the scene. I was beside Adrian, a moment before he had again given the word to halt, and had remained a few yards distant from us in deep meditation. He was forming swiftly his plan of action, to prevent the effusion of blood. The noise of canon, the sudden rush of the troops and yell of the foes startled him. With flashing eyes he exclaimed, Not one of these must perish! And, plunging the howls into his horse's sides, he dashed between the conflicting bands. We, his staff, followed him to surround and protect him, obeying his signal, however we felt back somewhat. The soldiery perceiving him paused in their onset. He did not swerve from the bullets that passed near him, but rode immediately between the opposing lines. Silence succeeded to clamour. About fifty men lay on the ground, dying or dead. Adrian raised his sword and act to speak. By whose command, he cried, addressing his own troops, do you advance? Who ordered your attack? Fall back! These misguided men shall not be slaughtered while I am your general. Sheath your weapons. These are your brothers. Commit not, fratricide. Soon the plague will not leave one of you to glut your revenge upon. Will you be more pitiless than pestilence? As you honour me, as you worship God, in whose image those also are created, as your children and friends are dear to you, shed not a drop of precious human blood. He spoke with outstretched hand and winning voice, and then turning to our invaders. With a severe brow, he commanded them to lay down their arms. Do you think, he said, that because we are wasted by plague, you can overcome us? The plague is also among you, and when ye are vanquished by famine and disease, the ghosts of those you have murdered will arise to bid you not open death. Lay down your arms, barbarous and cruel men, men whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent, whose souls are weighed down by the orphan's cry. We shall conquer, for the right is on our side. Already your cheeks are pale. The weapons fall from your nerveless grasp. Lay down your arms, fellow men, brethren, pardon, succour, and brotherly love, await your repentance. You are dear to us because you wear the frail shape of humanity. Each one among you will find a friend and host among these forces. Shall man be the enemy of man, while plague, the foe to all, even now, is above us? Triumphing in our buttery, more cruel than her own? Each army paused. On our side the soldiers grasped their arms firmly, and looked with stern glances on the foe. These had not thrown down their weapons, more from fear than the spirit of contest. They looked at each other, each wishing to follow some example given him, but they had no leader. Adrien threw himself from his horse, and approaching one of these just slain. He was a man, he cried, and he is dead. Oh, quickly bind up the wounds of the fallen. Let not one die. Let not one more soul escape through your merciless gashes to relate before the throne of God the tale of Fratricite. Bind up their wounds. Restore them to their friends. Cast away the hearts of tigers that burn in your breasts. Throw down those tools of cruelty and hate. In this pause of exterminating destiny, let each man be brother, guardian, and stay to the other. Away with those bloodstained arms and hasten some of you to bind up these wounds. As he spoke he knelt on the ground, and raised in his arms a man from whose side the warm tide of life gushed. The poor wretched gassed, so still had either host become, that his moans were distantly heard, and every heart, late fiercely bent on universal massacre, now beat anxiously in hope and fear for the fate of this one man. Adrian tore off his military scarf and bound it round the sufferer. It was too late. The man heaved a deep sigh. His head fell back. His limbs lost their sustaining power. He is dead, said Adrian, as the corpse fell from his arms on the ground, and he bowed his head in sorrow and awe. The fate of the world seemed bound up in the death of this single man. On either side the bands threw down their arms, even the veterans wept in our party held out their hands to their foes, while a gush of love and deepest amity filled every heart. The two forces mingling unarmed, and hand in hand, talking only how each might assist the other. The adversaries conjoined. Each repenting. The one side their formal cruelty. The other their late violence. They obeyed the orders of the general to proceed towards London. Adrian was obliged to exert his utmost prudence, first to allay the discord, and then to provide for the multitude of the invaders. They were marched to various parts of the southern counties, quartered in deserted villages. A part was sent back to their own island, while the season of winter so far revived our energy, that the passes of the country were defended, and any increase of numbers prohibited. On this occasion, Adrian and Idris met after a separation of nearly a year. Adrian had been occupied in fulfilling a laborious and painful task. He had been familiar with every species of human misery, and had for ever found his powers inadequate, his aid of small avail. Yet the purpose of his soul, his energy and ardent resolution prevented any reaction of sorrow. He seemed born anew and virtue more potent than Medea and Alchemy, and dued him with health and strength. Idris hardly recognized the fragile being whose form had seemed to bend even to the summer breeze. In the energetic man whose very excess of sensibility rendered him more capable of fulfilling his station of pilot in Stormtoss, England. It was not thus with Idris. She was uncomplaining, but the very soul of fear had taken its seat in her heart. She had grown thin and pale, her eyes filled with involuntary tears, her voice was broken and low. She tried to throw a veil over the change which she knew her brother must observe in her, but the effort was ineffectual, and when alone with him, with a burst of irrepressible grief, she gave vent to her apprehensions and sorrow. She described in vivid terms the ceaseless care that with still renewing hunger ate into her soul. She compared this gnawing, sleepless expectation of evil to the vulture that fed on the heart of Prometheus. Under the influence of this eternal excitement and of the interminable struggle she endured to combat and conceal it, she felt, she said, as if all the wheels and springs of the animal machine worked at double rate and were fast consuming themselves. Sleep was not sleep for her waking thoughts bridled by some remains of reason and by the sight of her children happy and in health were then transformed to wild dreams. All her terrors were realized, all her fears received their dread fulfilment. To this state there was no hope, no alleviation, unless the grave should quickly receive its destined prey, and she be permitted to die before she experienced a thousand living deaths in the loss of those she loved. Fearing to give me pain, she hid as best she could the excess of her wretchedness, but meeting thus her brother after a long absence she could not restrain the expression of her woe. But with all the vividness of imagination, with which misery is always replete, she poured out the emotions of her heart to her beloved and sympathizing Adrienne. Her present visit to London tended to augment her state of inquietude by shoeing in its utmost extent the ravages occasioned by pestilence. It hardly preserved the appearance of an inhabited city. Grass sprung up thick in the streets, the squares were weed grown, the houses were shut up while silence and loaning as characterised the busiest parts of the town. Yet in the midst of desolation Adrienne had preserved order, and each one continued to live according to law and custom, human institutions thus surviving as it were divine ones. And while the decree of population was abrogated, property continued sacred. It was a melancholy reflection, and in spite of the diminution of evil produced, it struck on the heart as a wretched mockery. All idea of resort for pleasure of theatres and festivals had passed away. Next summer, said Adrienne, as we parted on our return to Windsor, will decide the fate of the human race. I shall not pause in my exertions until that time. But, if plague revives with the coming year, all contest with her must cease, and our only occupation be the choice of a grave. I must not forget one incident that occurred during this visit to London. The visits of Marival to Windsor before frequent had suddenly ceased. At this time, where but a hair's line separated the living from the dead, I feared that our friend had become a victim to the all embracing evil. On this occasion I went, dreading the worst, to his dwelling, to see if I could be of any service to those of his family who might have survived. The house was deserted, and had been one of those assigned to the invading strangers quartered in London. I saw his astronomical instruments put to strange uses, his globes defaced, his papers covered with obstruced calculations destroyed. The neighbours could tell me little, till I lighted on a poor woman who acted as nurse in these perilous times. She told me that all the family were dead, except Marival himself, who had gone mad. Mad, she called it. Yet unquestioning her further, it appeared that he was possessed only by the delirium of excessive grief. This old man, tottering on the edge of the grave, and prolonging his prospect through millions of calculated years. This visionary who had not seen starvation in the wasted forms of his wife and children, or plague in the horrible sights and sounds that surrounded him, this astronomer apparently dead on earth, living only in the motion of the spheres, loved his family with unapparent but intense affection. Through long habit they had become a part of himself. His want of worldly knowledge, his absence of mind and infant guilelessness made him utterly dependent on them. It was not till one of them died that he perceived their danger. One by one they were carried off by pestilence, and his wife, his helpmate and supporter, more necessary to him than his own limbs and frame, which had hardly been taught the lesson of self-preservation. The kind companion whose voice always spoke peace to him, closed her eyes in death. The old man felt the system of universal nature, which he had so long studied and adored, slide from under him, and he stood among the dead, and lifted his voice in curses. No wonder that the attendant should interpret as frenzy the harrowing maledictions of the grief-struck old man. I had commenced my search late in the day, a November day, that closed in early with pattering rain in melancholy wind. As I turned from the door I saw Marival, or rather the shadow of Marival, attenuated in wild past me, and sit on the steps of his home. The breeze scattered the gray locks on his temples. The rain drenched his uncovered head. He sat hiding his face in his withered hands. I pressed his shoulder to awaken his attention, but he did not alter his position. Marival, I said, it is long since we've seen you. You must return to Windsor with me. Lady Idris desires to see you. You will not refuse her request. Come home with me. He replied in a hollow voice. Why deceive a helpless old man? Why talk hypocritically to one half-crazed? Windsor's not my home. My true home, I have found. The home that the Creator has prepared for me. His accent of bitter scorn thrilled me. Do not tempt me, it is speak. He continued. My words would scare you. In an universe of cowards I dare think. Among the churchyard tombs, among the victims of his merciless tyranny, I dare approach the supreme evil. How can he punish me? Let him bear his arm and transfix me with lightning. This is also one of his attributes. And the old man laughed. He rose, and I followed him through the rain to a neighbouring churchyard. He threw himself on the wet earth. Here they are. He cried, beautiful creatures, breathing, speaking, laughing, creatures. She who by day and night cherish the age-worn lover of youth. They parts of my flesh, my children. Here they are. Call them. Scream their names through the night. They will not answer. He clung to the little heaps that mark the graves. I ask but one thing. I do not fear his help, for I have it here. I do not desire his heaven. Let me but die and be laid beside them. Let me but when I lie dead, feel my flesh as it moulders, mingle with theirs. Promise? And he raised himself painfully and seized my arm. Promise to bury me with them? So God help me in mine, as I promise, I replied. On one condition. Return with me to Windsor. To Windsor! He cried with a shriek. Never! From this place I never go. My bones, my flesh, I myself are already buried here, and what you see of me is corrupted clay like them. I will lie here and cling here till rain and hail and lightning and storm ruining on me. Make me one in substance with them below. In a few words I must conclude this tragedy. I was obliged to leave London, and Adrian undertook to watch over him. The task was soon fulfilled. Age, grief, and inclement weather all united to hush his sorrows, and bring repose to his heart whose beats were agony. He died embracing the sod which was piled above his breast, when he was placed beside the beings whom he regretted with such wild despair. I returned to Windsor at the Wish of Idris, who seemed to think that there was greater safety for her children at that spot. And because, once having taken on me the guardianship of the district, I would not desert it while an inhabitant survived. I went also to acting conformity with Adrian's plans, which was to congregate in masses what remained of the population, for he possessed the conviction that it was only through the benevolent and social virtues that any safety was to be hoped for the remnant of mankind. It was a melancholy thing to return to this spot so dear to us, as the scene of a happiness rarely before enjoyed, here to mark the extinction of our species, and trace the deep unerasable footsteps of disease over the fertile and cherished soil. The aspect of the country had so far changed, that it had been impossible to enter on the task of sowing seed and other autumnal labours. That season was now gone, and winter had set in with sudden and unusual severity. Alternate frosts and thaws succeeded to floods rendered the country impassable. Heavy falls of snow gave an arctic appearance to the scenery. The roofs of the houses peeped from the white mass. The lowly cart and stately mansion alike deserted were blocked up, their thresholds unclear. The windows were broken by the hail, while the prevalence of a northeast wind rendered outdoor exertions extremely painful. The altered state of society made these accidents of nature sources of real misery. The luxury of command and the attentions of servitude were lost. It is true that the necessaries of life were assembled in such quantities as to supply to superfluity the wants of the diminished population. But still much labour was required to arrange these, as it were, raw materials. And depressed by sickness and fearful of the future, we had not energy to enter boldly and decidedly on any system. I can speak for myself. Want of energy was not my failing. The intense life that quickened my pulses and animated my frame had the effect not of drawing me into the mazes of active life, but of exalting my loneliness, and of bestowing majestic proportions on insignificant objects. I could have lived the life of a peasant in the same way. My trifling occupations were swelled into important pursuits. My affections were impetuous and engrossing passions, and nature with all her changes was invested in divine attributes. The very spirit of Greek mythology inhabited my heart. I deified the uplands, glades and streams, I had sight of Proteus coming from the sea, and heard old Triton blow his wreathed horn. Strange that while the earth preserved her monotonous course, I dwelt with ever-renewing wonder on her antique laws, and now that with eccentric wheels she rushed into an untried path, I should feel the spirit fade. I struggled with despondency and weariness, but like a fog they choked me. Perhaps, after the labours and stupendous excitement of the past summer, the calm of winter and the almost menial toils it brought with it were by natural reaction doubly irksome. It was not the grasping passion of the preceding year which gave life and individuality to each moment. It was not the aching pains induced by the distresses of the times. The utter inutility that had attended all my exertions took from them their usual effects of exhilaration and despair rendered abortive the balm of self-appluse. I longed to return to my old occupations, but of what use were they? To read were futile, to write vanity indeed. The earth late wide circus for the display of dignified exploits, vast theatre for a magnificent drama, now presented a vacant space, an empty stage. For actor or spectator there was no longer opt to say or hear. Our little town of Windsor, in which the survivors from the neighbouring counties were chiefly assembled, wore a melancholy aspect. Its streets were blocked up with snow, the few passengers seemed palsied and frozen by the ungenial visitation of winter. To escape these evils was the aim and scope of all our exertions. Families late devoted to exalting and refined pursuits, rich, blooming, and young, with diminished numbers and care-fraught hearts, huddled over a fire, grown selfish and groveling through suffering. Without the aid of servants it was necessary to discharge all household duties. Hands unused to such labour must need the bread, or in the absence of flour the statesmen or perfumed courtier must undertake the butcher's office. Poor and rich were now equal, or rather the poor were the superior since they entered on such tasks with alacrity and experience, while ignorance and aptitude in habits of repose rendered them fatiguing to the luxurious, galling to the proud, disgustful to all those minds bent on intellectual improvement, held it in their dearest privilege to be exempt from attending to mere animal wants. But in every change goodness and affection can find field for exertion and display. Among some these changes produced a devotion and sacrifice of self at once graceful and heroic. It was a sight for the lovers of the human race to enjoy, to behold, as in ancient times, the patriarchal modes in which the variety of kindred and friendship fulfilled their duty as in kindly offices. Youths, nobles of the land, performed for the sake of mother or sister the services of menials with amiable cheerfulness. They went to the river to break the ice and draw water. They assembled on foraging expeditions, or ax in hand felled the trees for fuel. The females received them on their return with the simple and affectionate welcome known before only to the lowly cottage, a clean hearth and bright fire, the supper ready cooked by beloved hands, gratitude for the provision for to-morrow's meal, strange enjoyments for the high-born English, yet they were now their soul hard-earned and dearly prized luxuries. None was more conspicuous for this graceful submission to circumstances, noble humility and ingenious fancy to adorn such acts with romantic colouring than our own Clara. She saw my despondency and the aching cares of Idris. Her perpetual study was to relieve us from labour and to spread ease and even elegance over our altered mode of life. We still had some attendance spared by disease and warmly attached to us. But Clara was jealous of their services. She would be sole handmaid of Idris, sole minister to the wants of her little cousins. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as our employing her in this way. She went beyond our desires, earnest, diligent and unwearyed. Abra was ready ere, we called her name, and though we called another, Abra came. It was my task each day to visit the various families assembled in our town, and when the weather permitted, I was glad to prolong my ride and to muse in solitude over every changeful appearance of our destiny, endeavouring to gather lessons for the future from the experience of the past. The impatience with which, while in society, the ills that afflicted my species inspired me, were softened by loneliness, when individual suffering was merged in the general calamity, strange to say, less afflicting to contemplate. Thus, often pushing my way with difficulty through the narrow snow-blocked town, I crossed the bridge and passed through Eaton. No youthful congregation of gallant-hearted boys thronged the portal of the college. Sad silence pervaded the busy schoolroom and noisy playground. I extended my ride toward Salt Hill, on every side impeded by the snow, were those the fertile fields I loved, was that the interchange of gentle upland and cultivated dale once covered with waving corn, diversified by stately trees, watered by the meandering tens? One street of white coveted, while bitter recollection told me that cold as the winter cloth to earth, were the hearts of the inhabitants. I met troops of horses, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, wandering at will, here throwing down a hay-rick and nestling from cold in its heart which afforded them shelter and food, though having taken possession of a vacant cottage. Once on a frosty day, pushed on by restless, unsatisfying reflections, I sought a favorite haunt, a little wood not far distant from Salt Hill, a bubbling spring prattles over stones on one side, and a plantation of a few elms and beaches hardly deserve and yet continue the name of wood. This spot had for me peculiar charms. It had been a favorite resort of Adrian. It was secluded, and he often said that in boyhood his happiest hours were spent here. Having escaped the stately bondage of his mother, he sat on the rough human steps that led to the spring, now reading a favorite book, now musing with speculation beyond its years, on the still unravelled skein of morals or metaphysics. A melancholy foreboding assured me that I should never see this place more. So, with careful thought, I noted each tree, every winding of the streamlet, and irregularity of the soil, that I might better call up its idea in absence. A robin red-breast dropped from the frosty branches of the trees, upon the conchilled ribulet. Its panting breast and half-closed eyes shewed that it was dying. A hawk appeared in the air, sudden fear seized the little creature. It exerted its last strength, throwing itself on its back, raising its talons in impotent defense against its powerful enemy. I took it up and placed it in my breast. I fed it with a few crumbs from a biscuit. By degrees, it revived. Its warm, fluttering heart beat against me. I cannot tell why I detail this trifling incident. But the scene is still before me. The snow-clad fields seen through the silver trunks of the beaches. The brook and days of happiness alive with sparkling waters now choked by ice. The leafless trees fantastically dressed in horror frost. The shapes of summer leaves imaged by winter's frozen hand on the hard ground. The dusky sky, drear, cold and unbroken silence. While close in my bosom, my feathered nestling lay warm and safe. Speaking its content with a light chirp, painful recollections thronged, stirring my brain with wild commotion. Cold and deathlike as the snowy fields was all earth, misery stricken the life-tide of the inhabitants. Why should I oppose the cataract of destruction that swept us away? Why string my nerves and renew my weary deficits? Ah, why? But that firm courage and cheerful exertions might shelter the dear mate whom I chose in the spring of my life. Though the throbbing of my heart be replete with pain, though my hopes for the future are chill, still while your dear hand, my gentlest love, can repose in peace on that heart, and while you derive from its fostering care comfort and hope, my struggles shall not cease. I will not call myself altogether vanquished. One fine February day, when the sun had re-assumed some of its genial power, I walked in the forest with my family. It was one of those lovely winter days which assert the capacity of nature to bestow beauty on barrenness. The leafless trees spread their fibrous branches against the pure sky. Their intricate and pervious tracery resembled delicate seaweed. The deer were turning up the snow in search of the hidden grass. The white was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and trunks of trees rendered more conspicuous by the loss of prepondering foliage, gathered around like the labyrinthine columns of a vast temple. It was impossible not to receive pleasure from the sight of these things. Our children freed from the bondage of winter bounded before us, pursuing the deer arousing the pheasants and partridges from their covarts. Idris lent to my arm. Her sadness yielded to the present sense of pleasure. We met other families on the long walk, enjoying like ourselves the return of the genial season. At once I seemed to awake. I cast off the clinging sloth of the past months. Earth assumed a new appearance, and my view of the future was suddenly made clear. I exclaimed, I've now found out the secret. What secret? In answer to this question I described our gloomy winter life, our sordid cares, our menial labours. This northern country, I said, is no place for our diminished race. When mankind were few, it was not here that they battled with the powerful agents of nature, and weren't able to cover the globe with offspring. We must seek some natural paradise, some garden of the earth, where our simple wants may be easily supplied, and the enjoyment of a delicious climate compensate for the social pleasures we have lost. If we survive this coming summer, I will not spend the ensuing winter in England, neither I nor any of us. I spoke without much heed, and the very conclusion of what I said brought with it other thoughts. Should we, any of us, survive the coming summer? I saw the brow of Idris clouded. I again felt that we were in chain to the car of fate over whose courses we had no control. We could no longer say this we will do and this we will leave undone. A mightier power than the human was at hand to destroy our plans or to achieve the work we avoided. It were madness to calculate upon another winter. This was our last. The coming summer was the extreme end of our vista. And when we arrived there, instead of a continuation of the long road, a gulf yawned into which we must a force be precipitated. The last blessing of humanity was rested from us. We might no longer hope. Can the madman, as he clanks his chains, hope? Can the wretch, led to the scaffold, who, when he lays his head on the block, marks the double shadow of himself and the executioner, whose uplifted arm bears the axe, hope? Can the shipwrecked mariner, who spent with swimming, hear's close behind the splashing waters divided by a shark which pursues him through the Atlantic hope? Such hope is theirs we also may entertain. Old Fable tells us that this gentle spirit sprung from the box of Pandora, else crammed with evils. But these were unseen and null while all admired the in-spiriting loveliness of young hope. Each man's heart became her home. She was enthroned sovereign of our lives. Here and hereafter she was deified in worship, declared incorruptible and everlasting. But like all other gifts of the Creator to man, she is mortal. Her life has attained its last hour. We have watched over her, nursed her flickering existence. Now she has fallen at once from youth to dequepitude, from health to immedicinable disease. Even as we spend ourselves in struggles for her recovery, she dies. To all the nations the voice goes forth, hope is dead. We are but mourners in the funeral train, and what immortal essence of perishable creation will refuse to make one in the sad procession that attends to its grave the dead comforter of humanity? Does not the sun call in his light, and day like a thin exhalation melt away, both wrapping up their beams in clouds to be themselves close mourners at this obsequie? WOLSTENCRAFT-SHELLY Volume 3 Chapter 1 Here you not the rushing sound of the coming tempest? Do you not behold the clouds open and destruction lurid and dire pour down upon the blasted earth? See you not the thunderbolt fall and are deafened by the shout of heaven that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with agonizing groans while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings, all announcing the last days of man? No, none of these things accompanied our fall. The balmy air of spring, breathed from nature's ambrosial home, invested the lovely earth which wakened as a young mother about to lead forth in pride her beauteous offspring to meet their sire who had been long absent. The buds decked the trees, the flowers adorned the land, the dark branches swollen with seasonable juices expanded into leaves, and the variegated foliage of spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced in the genial warmth of the unclouded empyrean. The brooks flowed murmuring, the sea was waveless, and the premonteries that overhung it were reflected in the placid waters. Birds awoke in the woods, while abundant food for man and beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was pain and evil? Not in the calm air or weltering ocean, not in the woods or fertile fields, nor among the birds that made the woods resonant with song, nor the animals that in the midst of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our enemy, like the calamity of Homer, trod our hearts, and no sound was echoed from her steps. With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea, diseases haunt our frail humanity. Through noon, through night, and casual wing they glide, silent, a voice the power all wise denied. Once man was a favorite of the creator, as the royal psalmist sang, God had made him a little lower than the angels, and had crowned him with glory and honor. God made him to have dominion over the works of his hands, and put all things under his feet. Once it was so. Now his man, lord of the creation, look at him. Ha! I see plague. She has invested his form, is incarnate in his flesh, has entwined herself with his being, and blinds his heaven-seeking eyes. Lie down, O man, on the flower-strone earth. Give up all claim to your inheritance. All you can ever possess of it is the small cell which the dead require. Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did when she was not. Of old navies used to stem the giant ocean waves betwixt Indus and the pole for slight articles of luxury. Men made perilous journeys to possess themselves of earth's splendid trifles, gems, and gold. Human labor was wasted. Human life set at naught. Now life is all that we covet, that this automation of flesh should with joints and springs in order perform its functions, that this dwelling of the soul should be capable of containing its dweller. Our minds, late spread abroad through countless spheres and endless combinations of thought, now retrenched themselves behind this wall of flesh, eager to preserve its well-being only. We were surely sufficiently degraded. At first the increase of sickness and spring brought increase of toil to such of us who, as yet spared to life, bestowed our time in thoughts on our fellow-creatures. We nerved ourselves to the task. In the midst of despair, we performed the tasks of hope. We went out with the resolution of disputing with our foe. We aided the sick and comforted the sovereign. Turning from the multitude in us dead to the rare survivors, with an energy of desire that bore the resemblance of power, we bade them live. Plagues sat paramount the while and laughed us to scorn. Have any of you, my readers, observed the ruins of an anthill immediately after its destruction? At first it appears entirely deserted of its former inhabitants. In a little time you see an ant struggling through the upturned mold. They reappear by twos and threes, running hither and tither in search of their lost companions. Such were we upon earth, wandering aghast of the effects of pestilence. Our empty habitation remained, but the dwellers were gathered to the shades of the tomb. As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost, some began with hesitation and wonder to transgress the accustomed uses of society. Palaces were deserted, and the poor man dared, at length, unreproved, intrude into the splendid apartments, whose very furniture and decorations were an unknown world to him. It was found that, though at first the stop put to all circulation of property, had reduced those before supported by the factitious wants of society to sudden and hideous poverty. Yet when the boundaries of private possession were thrown down, the products of human labour at present existing were far more than the thin generation could possibly consume. To some among the poor, this was matter of exultation. We were all equal now, magnificent dwellings, luxurious carpets, and beds of down were afforded to all. Carriages and horses, gardens, pictures, statues, and princely libraries, there were enough of these even to superfluity, and there was nothing to prevent each from assuming possession of his share. We were all equal now, but near at hand was inequality still more levelling, a state where beauty and strength and wisdom would be as vain as riches and birth. The grave yawned beneath us all, and its prospect prevented any of us from enjoying the ease and plenty which in so awful a manner was presented to us. Still the bloom did not fade on the cheeks of my babes, and Clara sprung up in years in growth unsullied by disease. We had no reason to think the sight of Windsor Castle peculiarly healthy, for many other families had expired beneath its roof. We lived therefore without any particular precaution, but we lived it seemed in safety. If idris became thin in pale it was anxiety that occasioned the change, and anxiety I could in no way alleviate. She never complained, but sleep and appetite fled from her, a slow fever preyed on her veins, her colour was hectic, and she often wept in secret, gloomy prognostications, care and agonising dread ate up the principle of life within her. I could not fail to perceive this change. I often wished that I had permitted her to take her own course and engage herself in such labours for the welfare of others as might have distracted her thoughts, but it was too late now. Besides that, with the nearly extinct race of man, all our toils grew near a conclusion. She was too weak. Consumption, if so it might be called, or rather the overactive life within her which as with Adrian spent the vital oil in the early morning hours deprived her limbs of strength. At night when she could leave me unperceived, she wandered through the house or hung over the couches of her children, and in the daytime would sink into a perturbed sleep while her murmurs and starts betray the unquiet dreams that vexed her. As this state of retinas became more confirmed, and in spite of her endeavours at concealment more apparent, I strove, though vainly, to awaken in her courage and hope. I could not wonder at the vehemence of her care. Her very soul was tenderness. She trusted indeed that she should not outlive me if I became the prey of the vast calamity, and this thought sometimes relieved her. We had for many years trod the highway of life hand in hand, and still thus linked we might step within the shades of death. But her children, her lovely, playful, animated children, being sprung from her own dear side, portions of her own being, depositories of our lungs, even if we died it would be comfort to know that they ran man's accustomed course. But it would not be so. Young and blooming as they were, they would die. And from the hopes of maturity, from the proud name of attained manhood, they were cut off forever. Often with maternal affection she had figured their merits and talents exerted on life's wide stage. Alas for these latter days, the world had grown old, and all its inmates partook of the decrepitude. Why talk of infancy, manhood, and old age? We all stood equal-sharrows of the last throes of time-worn nature. Arrived at the same point of the world's age, there was no difference in us. The name of parent and child had lost their meaning. Young boys and girls were level now with men. This was all true, but it was not less agonizing to take the admonition home. Where could we turn and not find a desolation pregnant with the dire lesson of example? The fields had been left uncultivated, weeds and gaudy flowers sprung up, or where a few wheat fields shooed signs of the living hopes of the husbandmen, the work had been left half-way, the plowmen had died beside the plow. The horses had deserted the furrow, and no seedsmen had approached the dead. The cattle unattended wandered over the fields and through the lanes. The tame inhabitants of the poultry-yard, balked of their daily food, had become wild. Young lambs were dropped in flower gardens, and the cows stalled in the hall of pleasure. Sickly and few, the country-people neither went out to sow nor reap, but sauntered about the meadows, or lay under the hedges when the inclement sky did not drive them to take shelter under the nearest roof. Many of those who remained secluded themselves. Some had laid up stores which would prevent the necessity of leaving their homes. Some deserted wife and child, then imagined that they secured their safety in utter solitude. Such had been Rylan's plan, and he was discovered dead and half devoured by insects, in a house many miles from any other, with piles of food laid up in useless superfluity. Others made long journeys to unite themselves with those they loved, and arrived to find them dead. London did not contain above a thousand inhabitants, and this number was continually diminishing. Most of them were country-people, come up for the sake of change. The Londoners had sought the country. The busy eastern part of the town was silent, or at most you saw only half from cupidity, half from curiosity. The warehouses had been more ransacked than pillaged. Bails of rich India goods, shawls of price, jewels and spices, unpacked strewn the floors. In some places the possessor had, to the last, kept watch on his store and died before the barred gates. The massy portals of the churches swung creaking on their hinges, and some few lay dead on the pavement. The wretched female, loveless victim of vulgar brutality, had wandered to the toilet of high-born beauty, and, arraying herself in the garb of splendour, had died before the mirror which reflected to herself alone her altered appearance. Women whose delicate feet had seldom touched the earth and their luxury had fled in fright and horror from their homes, till losing themselves in the squalid streets of the metropolis they had died on the threshold of poverty. The heart sickened at the variety of misery presented, and when I saw a specimen of this gloomy change, my soul ached with the fear of what might perform my beloved interest in my babes. Were they surviving Adrien and myself to find themselves protectorless in the world? As yet the mine alone had suffered. Could I forever put off the time when the delicate frame and shrinking nerves of my child of prosperity, the nurseling of rank and wealth who was my companion, should be invaded by famine, hardship, and disease? Better die at once, better plunge a poignant in her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then again sheed it in my own, but no. In times of misery we must fight against our destinies and strive not to be overcome by them. I would not yield, but to the last gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow and pain, and if I were vanquished at last it should not be ingloriously. I stood at the gap, resisting the enemy, the impelpable invisible foe, who had so long besieged us. As yet he had made no breach. It must be by care that he should not, secretly undermining, burst out within the very threshold of the temple of love at whose altar I daily sacrificed. The hunger of death was now stung more sharply by the diminution of his food. Or was it that before the survivors being many the dead were less eagerly counted? Now each life was a gem, each human breathing form of far, oh, far more worth than subtlest imagery of sculpted stone. And the daily, nay, hourly decrease visible in our numbers visited the heart with sickening misery. This summer extinguished our hopes. The vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered raft which carried the few survivors over the Sea of Misery was riven and tempest tossed. Man existed by twos and threes. Man, the individual who might sleep and wake and perform the animal functions. But man, in himself weak yet more powerful in congregated numbers than wind or ocean. Man, the queller of the elements the Lord of created nature, the peer of demigods existed no longer. Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well-earned mead of virtuous aspiration. Farewell to crowded Senate, vocal with the councils of the wise, whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered at Damascus. Farewell to kingly pomp and warlike pageantry, the crowns are in the dust and the wearers are in their graves. Farewell to the desire of rule and the hope of victory, to high vaulting ambition, to the appetite for praise and the craving for the suffrage of their fellows. The nations are no longer. No Senate sits in council for the dead, no scion of a time honored dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house. The general's hand is cold and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured though in youth. The marketplace is empty. The candidate for popular favour finds none whom he can represent. The chambers of painted state farewell, to midnight revelry and the panting emulation of beauty, to costly dress and birthday shoe, to title and the gilded coronet farewell. Farewell to the giant powers of man, to knowledge that could pilot the deep drawing bark through the opposing waters of shoreless ocean, to science that directed the silken balloon through the pathless air, to the power that could put a barrier to mighty waters and set emotion wheels and beams and vast machinery that could divide rocks of granite or marble and make the mountains plain. Farewell to the arts, to eloquence which is to the human mind as the winds to the sea, stirring and then allaying it. Farewell to poetry and deep philosophy, for man's imagination is cold, and his inquiring mind can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life. For there is no work, no device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave. Wither thou, coast, to the graceful building which in its perfect proportion transcended the rude forms of nature, the fretted gothic and massy, saracenic pile, to the stupendous arch and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital, Corinthian, Ionic or Doric, the peristyle and fare and tablature whose harmony or form is to the eye his musical concord to the ear. Farewell to sculpture where the pure marble mocks human flesh and in the plastic expression of the cold excellencies of the human shape shines forth the god. Farewell to painting the high wrought sentiment and deep knowledge of the artist's mind in pictured canvas, to paradisical scenes where the stamped form of tempest and wildest uproar of universal nature and caged in the narrow frame. Oh, farewell, farewell to music and the sound of song, to the marriage of instruments where the concord of soft and harsh unites in sweet harmony, and gives wings to the panting listeners whereby to climb heaven and learn the hidden pleasures of the Eternals. Farewell to the well-trod stage. A truer tragedy is enacted on the world's ample scene that puts to shame mimic grief. To high-bred comedy and the low buffoon farewell, man may laugh no more. Alas, to enumerate the adornments of humanity shused by what we have lost, how supremely great man was. It is all over now. He is solitary, like our first parents expelled from paradise. He looks back towards the scene he has quitted. The high walls of the tomb and the flaming sword of plague lie between it and him. Like to our first parents the whole earth is before him, a wide desert. Unsupported and weak let him wander through the fields where the unreaped corn stands and barren plenty, through copses planted by his fathers, through towns built for his use. Posterity is no more. Fame and ambition and love are words void of meaning, even as the cattle that grazes in the field do thou, O deserted one, lie down at evening tide, unknowing of the past, careless of the future. For from such fond ignorance alone canst thou hope for ease. Joy paints its own colors every act and thought. The happy do not feel poverty, for delight is as a gold-tissued robe, and crowns them with priceless gems. Enjoyment plays the cook to their homely fare, and mingles in intoxication with their simple drink. Joy strews the hard couch with roses and makes labour ease. Sorrow doubles the berth into the bent down back, plants thorns in the unyielding pillow, mingles gall with water, adds saltiness to their bitter bread, clothing them in rags and strewing ashes on their bare heads. To our irredeemable distress, every small and pelting inconvenience came with added force. We had strung our frames to endure the atly and weight thrown on us. We sank beneath the added feather, chanced through on us. The grass-hopper was a burden. Many of the survivors had been bred in luxury, their servants were gone, their powers of command vanished like unreal shadows. The poor even suffered various privations, and the idea of another winter like the last brought a fright to our minds. Was it not enough that we must die, but toil must be added? Must we prepare our fuel repast with labour and with unseemly drudgery heap fuel on our deserted hearts? Must we, with servile hands, fabricate the garment soon to be our shroud? Not so. We are presently to die. Let us then enjoy to its full relish the remnant of our lives, sordid care of aunt. Mean your labours and pains slighten themselves, but too gigantic for our exhausted strength shall make no part of our ephemeral existences. In the beginning of time, when as now man lived by families and not by tribes or nations, they were placed in a genial climb where earth fed them untilled in the balmy air and wrapped their reposing limbs with warmth more pleasant than beds of down. The south is the native place of the human race, the land of fruits more grateful to man than the hard-earned serace of the north, of trees whose boughs are as a palace-roof, of couches of roses, and of the thirst-appeasing grape. We need not their fear cold and hunger. Look at England. The grass shoots up high in the meadows, but they are dank and cold, unfit bed for us. Corn we have none, and the crude fruits cannot support us. We must seek firing in the bowels of the earth, or the unkind atmosphere will fill us with rooms and aches. The labour of hundreds of thousands alone could make this inclement nook fit habitation for one man. To the south, then, to the sun, where nature is kind, where jove has showered forth the contents of our mouthy as horn and earth is guarded. England, late birthplace of excellence and school of the wise, thy children are gone, thy glory faded. Thou, England, where it's the triumph of man, small favour was shunned thee by thy creator, thou isle of the north. A ragged canvas naturally, painted by man with alien colours, but the hues he gave are faded, never more to be renewed. So we must leave thee, thou marvel of the world. We must bid farewell to thy clouds and cold and scarcity for ever. Thy manly hearts are still, thy tale of power and liberty at its close. Bereft of man, O little Isle, the ocean waves will buffet thee, and the raven flap his wings over thee. Thy soil will be birthplace of weeds, thy sky will canopy barrenness. It was not for the rows of Persia thou were't famous, nor the banana of the east, nor for the spicy gales of India, nor the sugar-groves of America. Not for thy vines, nor thy double harvests, nor for thy vernal airs, nor solsticeous sun, but for thy children, their unwearyed industry and lofty aspiration. They are gone, and thou goest with them the oft trodden path that leads to oblivion. Farewell, sad Isle. Farewell, thy fatal glory is summed, cast up and cancelled in this story. The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Volume 3, Chapter 2 In the autumn of this year, 2096, the spirit of emigration crept in among the few survivors who, congregating from various parts of England, met in London. This spirit existed as a breath, a wish, a far-off thought, until communicated to Adrian, who imbibed it with Arda, and instantly engaged himself in plans for its execution. The fear of immediate death vanished with the heats of September, another winter as before us, and we might elect our maid of passing it to the best advantage. Perhaps in rational philosophy none could be better chosen than this scheme of migration, which would draw us from the immediate scene of our woe, and leading us through pleasant and picturesque countries amused for a time our despair. The idea once broached all were impatient to put it in execution. We were still at Windsor, our renewed hope's medicine, the anguish we had suffered from the late tragedies. The death of many of our inmates had weaned us from the fond idea that Windsor Castle was a spot sacred from the plague, but our lease of life was renewed for some months, and even Idris lifted her head as a lily after a storm, when a last sunbeam tinges its silver cup. Just at this time Adrian came down to us, his ego looks showed us that he was full of some scheme. He hastened to take me aside and disclose to me with rapidity his plan of emigration from England. To leave England for ever, to turn from its polluted fields and graves, and placing the sea between us to quit it, as a sailor quits the rock on which he has been wrecked, when the saving ship rides by. Such was his plan. To leave the country of our fathers made holy by their graves, we could not feel even as a voluntary exile of old, who might for pleasure or convenience forsake his native soil, though thousands of miles might divide him. England was still a part of him, as he of her. He heard of the passing events of the day, he knew that if he returned and resumed his place in society the entrance was still open, and it required but the will to surround himself at once with the associations and habits of boyhood, not say with us, the remnant. We left none to represent us, none to re-people the desert land, and the name of England died when we left her, in vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety. Yet let us go, England is in her shroud, we may not enchain ourselves to a corpse. Let us go, the world is our country now, and we will choose for our residence its most fertile spot. Shall we, in these desert halls, under this wintry sky, sit with closed eyes and folded hands, expecting death? Let us rather go out to meet it gallantly, or perhaps for all this pendulous orb, this fair gem in the sky's de-Adom, is not surely plague-stricken, perhaps in some secluded nook, amidst eternal spring and waving trees and pearling streams we may find life. The world is vast, and England, though her many fields and widespread woods seem interminable, is but a small part of her. At the close of a day's march over high mountains and through snowy valleys, we may come upon health, and, committing our loved ones to its charge, replant the up-rooted tree of humanity, and send to late posterity the tale of the anti-pestilential race, the heroes and sages of the lost state of things. Hope beckons and sorrow urges us, the heart beats high with expectation, and this eager desire of change must be an omen of success. O come, farewell to the dead, farewell to the tombs of those we loved, farewell to giant London and the placid Thames, to river and mountain, or fair district, birthplace of the wise and good, to Windsor Forest and its antique castle, farewell. Themes for story alone are they, we must live elsewhere. Search were in part the arguments of Adrian. Uttered with enthusiasm and unanswerable rapidity, something more was in his heart to which he dared not give words. He felt that the end of time was come. He knew that one by one we should dwindle into nothingness. It was not advisable to wait this sad consummation in our native country, but travelling would give us our object for each day. That would distract our thoughts from the swift approaching end of things. If we went to Italy to sacred and eternal Rome, we might with greater patience submit to the decree which had laid her mighty towers low. We might lose our selfish grief in the sublime aspect of its desolation. All this was in the mind of Adrian, but he thought of my children, and instead of communicating to me these resources of despair, he called up the image of health and life to be found, where we knew not, when we knew not, but if never to be found, for ever and for ever to be sought, he won me over to his party, heart and soul. It devolved on me to disclose our plan to Idris. The images of health and hope which I presented to her made her with a smile-consent. With a smile she agreed to leave her country, from which she had never before been absent, and the spot she had inhabited from infancy, the forest and its mighty trees, the woodland paths and green recesses, where she had played in childhood, and had lived so happily through youth. She would leave them without regret, for she hoped to purchase thus the lives of her children. They were her life, dearer than a spot consecrated to love, dearer than all else the earth contained. The boys heard with childish glee of our removal. Clara asked if we were to go to Athens. It is possible, I replied, and her countenance became radiant with pleasure. There she would behold the tomb of her parents, and the territory filled with recollections of her father's glory. In silence but without respite, she had brooded over these scenes. It was the recollection of them that had turned her infant gaiety to seriousness, and had impressed her with high and restless thoughts. There were many dear friends whom we must not leave behind, humble though they were. There was the spirited and obedient steed which Lord Raymond had given his daughter. There was Alfred's dog and a pet eagle, whose sight was dimmed through age. But this catalogue of favourites to be taken with us could not be made without grief to think of our heavy losses, and a deep sigh for the many things we must leave behind. The tears rushed into the eyes of Idris, while Alfred and Evelyn bought now a favourite rose-tree, now a marble vase beautifully carved, insisting that these must go, and exclaiming on the pity that we could not take the castle and the forest, the deer and the birds, and all accustomed and cherished objects along with us. Fond and foolish ones, I said, we have lost for ever treasures far more precious than these, and we desert them to preserve treasures to which in comparison they are nothing. Let us not for a moment forget our object and our hope, and they will form a resistless mound to stop the overflowing of our regret for trifles. The children were easily distracted, and again returned to their prospect of future amusement. Idris had disappeared. She had gone to hide her weakness, escaping from the castle. She had descended to the little park and sought solitude, that she might there indulge her tears. I found her clinging round an old oak, pressing its rough trunk with her rasiate lips, as her tears fell plentiously, and her sobs and broken exclamations could not be suppressed. With surpassing grief I beheld this loved one of my heart thus lost in sorrow. I drew her towards me, and as she felt my kisses on her eyelids, as she felt my arms press her, she revived to the knowledge of what remained to her. You are very kind not to reproach me, she said. I weep, and a bitter pang of intolerable sorrow tears my heart, and yet I am happy. Mothers lament their children, wives lose their husbands, while you and my children are left to me. Yes, I am happy, most happy, that I can weep thus for imaginary sorrows, and that the slight loss of my adored country is not dwindled and annihilated in mightier misery. Take me where you will, where you and my children are there shall be Windsor, and every country will be England to me. Let these tears flow not for myself, happy and ungrateful as I am, but for the dead world, for our lost country, for all of love and life and joy, now choked in the dusty chambers of death. She spoke quickly, as if to convince herself. She turned her eyes from the trees and forest paths she loved. She hid her face in my bosom, and we, yes, my masculine firmness dissolved. We wept together, consolatory tears, and then, calm, nay, almost cheerful, we returned to the castle. The first cold weather of an English October made us hasten our preparations. I persuaded Idris to go up to London, where she might better attend to necessary arrangements. I did not tell her that to spare her the pang of parting from inanimate objects, now the only things left, I had resolved that we should none of us return to Windsor. For the last time we looked on the wide extent of country visible from the terrace, and saw the last rays of the sun tinge the dark masses of wood variegated by autumnal tints. The uncultivated fields and smokeless cottages lay in shadow below. The Thames wound through the wide plain, and the venerable pile of eaten college stood in dark relief, a prominent object, the coring of the myriad rooks which inhabited the trees of the little park, as in column or thick wedge they speeded to their nests, disturbed the silence of the evening. Nature was the same, as when she was the kind mother of the human race. Now, childless and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery, her loveliness a mask for deformity. Why should the breeze gently stir the trees? Man felt not its refreshment. Why did dark night adorn herself with stars? Man saw them not. Why are there fruits or flowers or streams? Man is not here to enjoy them. Idris stood beside me, her dear hand locked in mine, her face was radiant with a smile. The sun is alone, she said, but we are not. A strange star my Lionel willed our birth, sadly, and with this may we may look upon the annihilation of man, but we remain for each other. Did I ever in the wide world seek other than thee? And since in the wide world thou remainest, why should I complain? Thou and nature are still true to me. Beneath the shades of night and through the day, whose garish light displays our solitude, thou wilt still be at my side, and even Windsor will not be regretted. I had chosen night-time for our journey to London, that the change in desolation of the country might be the less observable. Our only surviving servant drove us. We passed down the steep hill and entered the dusky avenue of the long walk. At times like these, minute circumstances assumed giant and majestic proportions, the very swinging open of the white gate that admitted us into the forest, arrested my thoughts as matter of interest. It was an everyday act, never to occur again. The setting crescent of the moon glittered through the massy trees to our right, and when we entered the park we scared a troop of deer that fled bounding away in the forest shades. Our two boys quietly slept. Once before our road turned from the view, I looked back on the castle. Its windows glistened in the moonshine, and its heavy outline lay in a dark mass against the sky. The trees near us waved a solemn dirge to the midnight breeze. Idris leaned back in the carriage. Her two hands pressed mine. Her countenance was placid. She seemed to lose the sense of what she now left, in the memory of what she still possessed. My thoughts were sad and solemn, yet not of unmingled pain. The very excess of our misery carried a relief with it, giving sublimity and elevation to sorrow. I felt that I carried with me those I best loved. I was pleased after a long separation to rejoin Adrian, never again to part. I felt that I quitted what I loved, not what loved me. The castle walls and long familiar trees did not hear the parting sound of our carriage-wheels with regret, and while I felt Idris to be near and heard the regular breathing of my children, I could not be unhappy. Clara was greatly moved, with streaming eyes suppressing her sobs, she leaned from the window, watching the last glimpse of her native Windsor. Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all animation. You could no longer trace in his look of health the suffering valedudinarian. From his smile and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was about to lead forth from their native country, the numbered remnant of the English nation, into the tenetless realms of the south, there to die one by one, till the last man should remain in the voiceless empty world. Adrian was impatient for our departure and had advanced far in his preparations. His wisdom guided all. His care was the sole to move the luckless crowd who relied wholly on him. It was useless to provide many things, for we should find abundant provision in every town. It was Adrian's wish to prevent all labour to bestow a festive appearance on this funeral train. Our numbers amounted to not quite two thousand persons. These were not all assembled in London, but each day witnessed the arrival of fresh numbers, and those who resided in the neighbouring towns had received orders to assemble at one place on the twentieth of November. Carriages and horses were provided for all, captains and under-offices chosen, and the whole assemblage wisely organised. All obeyed the Lord Protector of dying England, all looked up to him. His council was chosen, it consisted of about fifty persons. Distinction and station were not the qualifications of their election. We had no station among us, but that which benevolence and prudence gave. No distinction saved between the living and the dead. Although we were anxious to leave England before the depth of winter, yet we were detained. Small parties had been dispatched to various parts of England, in search of stragglers. We would not go until we had assured ourselves that in all human probability we did not leave behind a single human being. On our arrival in London, we found that the aged Countess of Windsor was residing with her son in the Palace of the Protectorate. We repaired to her a customed abode near Hyde Park. Idris now, for the first time for many years, saw her mother, anxious to assure herself that the childishness of old age did not mingle with unforgotten pride, to make this high-born dame still so inveterate against me. Age and care had furrowed her cheeks and bent her form, but her eye was still bright, her manner's authoritative and unchanged. She received her daughter coldly, but displayed more feeling as she folded her grandchildren in her arms. It is our nature to wish to continue our systems and thoughts to posterity through our own offspring. The Countess had failed in this design with regard to her children. Perhaps she hoped to find the next remove in birth more tractable. Once Idris named me casually, a frown, a convulsive gesture of anger shook her mother, and with voice trembling with hate she said, I am of little worth in this world, the younger impatient to push the old off the scene, but Idris, if you do not wish to see your mother expired, your feet never again name that person to me. All else I can bear, and now I am resigned to the destruction of my cherished hopes, but it is too much to require that I should love the instrument that Providence gifted with murderous properties for my destruction. This was a strange speech, now that, on the empty stage, each might play his part without impediment from the other, but the haughty ex-queen thought as Octavia Caesar and Mark Antony, we could not stall together in the whole world. The period of our departure was fixed for the twenty-fifth of November, the weather was temperate, soft rains fell at night, and by day the wintry sun shone out. Our numbers were to move forward in separate parties, and to go by different routes, all to unite at last at Paris. Adrian and his division, consisting in all of five hundred persons, were to take the direction of Dover and Calais. On the twentieth of November, Adrian and I rode for the last time through the streets of London. They were grass-grown and desert. The open doors of the empty mansions, creaked upon their hinges, rank herbage, and deforming dirt had swiftly accumulated on the steps of the houses. The voiceless steeples of the churches pierced the smokeless air. The churches were open, but no prayer was offered at the altars. Mildew and Damp had already defaced their ornaments. Birds and tame animals, now homeless, had built nests and made their lairs in consecrated spots. We passed St. Paul's. London, which had extended so far in suburbs in all direction, had been somewhat deserted in the midst, and much of what had in former days obscured this fast building was removed. Its ponderous mass, blackened stone, and high dome, made it look not like a temple, but a tomb. We thought above the portico was engraved the Hick jasted of England. We passed on eastwards, engaged in such solemn talk as the times inspired. No human step was heard, nor human form discerned. Troops of dogs, deserted of their masters, passed us, and now and then a horse, unbridled and unsettled, trotted towards us, and tried to attract the attention of those which we rode, as if to allure them to seek like liberty. An unwieldy ox, who had fed in an abandoned granary, suddenly lobed and shewed his shapeless form in the narrow doorway. Everything was desert, but nothing was in ruin, and this medley of undamaged buildings and luxurious accommodation, in trim and fresh youth, was contrasted with the lonely silence of the unpeopled street. Night closed in, and it began to rain. We were about to return homewards when a voice, a human voice, strange now to hear, attracted our attention. It was a child singing a merry, lightsome air. There was no other sound. We had traversed London from Hyde Park, even to where we now were in the minories, and had met no person, heard no voice, nor footstep. The singing was interrupted by laughing and talking. Never was merry-ditty so sadly timed, never laughed or more akin to tears. The door of the house from which these sounds proceeded was open. The upper rooms were illuminated as for a feast. It was a large, magnificent house, in which doubtless some rich merchant had lived. The singing again commenced, and rang through the high-roofed rooms while we silently ascended the staircase. Lights now appeared to guide us, and a long suite of splendid rooms illuminated made us still more wonder. Their only inhabitant, a little girl, was dancing, waltzing, and singing about them, followed by a large newfoundling dog, who, boisterously jumping on her and interrupting her, made her now scold, now laugh, now throw herself on the carpet to play with him. She was dressed grotesquely in glittering robes and shawls fit for a woman. She appeared about ten years of age. We stood at the door, looking on this strange scene, till the dog, perceiving us, barked loudly. The child turned and saw us. Her face, losing its gaiety, assumed a sullen expression. She slunk back, apparently meditating in escape. I came up to her and held her hand. She did not resist, but with a stern brow, so strange in childhood, so different from her former hilarity, she stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. What do you do here, I said gently? Who are you? She was silent, but trembled violently. My poor child asked Adrien, are you alone? There was a winning softness in his voice that went to the heart of the little girl. She looked at him, then, snatching her hand from me, threw herself into his arms, clinging round his neck, ejaculating, save me, save me, while her unnatural sulleness dissolved in tears. I will save you, he replied. Of what are you afraid? You need not fear my friend. He will do you no harm. Are you alone? No, Lyon is with me. And your father and mother? I never had any. I am a charity girl. Everybody is gone, gone for a great, great many days, but if they come back and find me out, they will beat me so. Her unhappy story was told in these few words, an orphan, taken on pretended charity, ill-treated and reviled, her oppressors had died, and knowing of what had passed around her, she found herself alone. She had not dared venture out, but by the continuance of her solitude, her courage revived, her childish ferocity caused her to play a thousand freaks, and with her brute companion she passed a long holiday, fearing nothing but the return of the harsh voices and cruel usage of her protectors. She readily consented to go with Adrian. In the meantime, while we discounted on alien surres and on a solitude which struck our eyes and not our hearts, while we imagined all of change and suffering that had intervened in these once thronged streets, before tenetless and abandoned they became mere kennels for dogs and stables for cattle, while we read the death of the world upon the dark fane and hugged ourselves in the remembrance that we possessed that which was all the world to us, in the meanwhile. We had arrived from Windsor early in October, and had now been in London about six weeks. Day by day, during that time, the health of my Idris declined, her heart was broken, neither sleep nor appetite, the chosen servants of health waited on her wasted form. To watch her children hour by hour, to sit by me, drinking deep the dear persuasion that I remained to her, was all her past time. Her vivacity so long assumed, her affectionate display of cheerfulness, her light-hearted tone, and springy gait were gone. I could not disguise to myself nor could she conceal her life-consuming sorrow. Still, change of scene and reviving hopes might mistore her. I feared the plague only, and she was untouched by that. I had left her this evening, reposing after the fatigues of her preparations. Clara sat beside her, relating a story to the two boys. The eyes of Idris were closed, but Clara perceived a sudden change in the appearance of our eldest darling. His heavy lids veiled his eyes, and a natural colour burnt in his cheeks, his breath became short. Clara looked at the mother, she slept, yet started at the pause the narrator made. Fear of awaking and alarming her caused Clara to go on at the eager call of Evelyn, who was unaware of what was passing. Her eyes turned alternately from Alfred to Idris, with trembling accents she continued her tail till she saw the child about to fall. Starting forward she caught him, and her cry roused Idris. She looked on her son. She saw death stealing across his features. She laid him on a bed. She held drink to his patch-lips. Yet he might be saved. If I were there he might be saved. Perhaps it was not the plague. Without a counsellor, what could she do? Stay and behold him die? Why, at that moment, was I away? Look to him, Clara, she exclaimed, I will return immediately. She inquired among those who, selected as the companions of our journey, had taken up their residents in our house. She heard from them merely that I had gone out with Adrian. She entreated them to seek me. She returned to her child. He was plunged in a frightful state of torpor. Again she rushed downstairs. All was dark, desert and silent. She lost all self-possession. She ran into the street. She called on my name. The pattering rain and howling wind alone replied to her. Wild fear gave wings to her feet. She darted forward to seek me. She knew not where, but putting all her thoughts, all her energy, all her being in speed only. Most misdirected speed. She neither felt nor feared nor paused, but ran right on till her strength suddenly deserted her so suddenly that she had not thought to save herself. Her knees failed her, and she fell heavily on the pavement. She was stunned for a time, but at length rose, and though sorely hurt, still walked on, shedding a fountain of tears, stumbling at times, going she knew not wither, only now and then with feeble voice she called my name, adding with heart-piercing exclamations that I was cruel and unkind. Human being there was none to reply, and the inclementcy of the night had driven the wandering animals to the habitations they had usurped. Her thin dress was drenched with rain. Her wet hair clung round her neck. She tottered through the dark streets till striking her foot against an unseen impediment. She again fell. She could not rise. She hardly strove, but gathering up her limbs, she resigned herself to the fury of the elements, and the bitter grief of her own heart. She breathed an earnest prayer to die speedily, for there was no relief but death. While hopeless of safety for herself, she ceased to lament for her dying child, but shed kindly bitter tears for the grief I should experience in losing her. While she lay, life almost suspended, she felt a warm, soft hand on her brow, and a gentle female voice asked her, with expressions of tender compassion, if she could not rise, that another human being, sympathetic and kind, should exist near, roused her. Half-rising with clasped hands and fresh-spring tears, she entreated her companion to seek for me, to bid me hasten to my dying child, to save him for the love of heaven, to save him. The woman raised her. She led her under shelter. She entreated her to return to her home, wither perhaps I had already returned. Idris easily yielded to her persuasions. She leaned on the arm of her friend. She endeavoured to walk on, but irresistible faintness made her pause again and again. Quickened by the increasing storm, we had hastened our return. Our little charge was placed before Adrian on his horse. There was an assemblage of persons under the portico of our house, in whose gestures I instinctively read some heavy change, some new misfortune. With swift alarm afraid to ask a single question, I leapt from my horse, the spectator saw me, knew me, and in awful silence divided to make way for me. I snatched a light, and rushing upstairs and hearing a groan. Without reflection I threw open the door of the first room that presented itself. It was quite dark, but as I stepped within, a pernicious scent assailed my senses, producing sickening qualms which made their way to my very heart, while I felt my legs clasped, and a groan repeated by the person that held me. I lowered my lamp and saw a negro half-clad writhing under the agony of disease, while he held me with a convulsive grasp. With mixed horror and impatience I strafed to disengage myself, and fell on the sufferer. He wound his naked, festering arms around me. His face was close to mine, and his breath, death laden, entered my vitals. For a moment I was overcome. My head was bowed by aching nausea. Till reflection returning I sprung up through the retch from me, and darting up the staircase, entered the chamber usually inhabited by my family. A dim light showed me Alfred on a couch, Clara trembling, and paler than whitest snow, had raised him on her arm, holding a cup of water to his lips. I saw full well that no spark of life existed in that ruined form. His features were rigid, his eyes glazed, his head had fallen back. I took him from her, I laid him softly down, kissed his cold little mouth, and turned to speak in a vain whisper, when loudest sound of thunder-like cannon could not have reached him in his immaterial abode. And where was Idris, that she had gone out to seek me and had not returned, were fearful tidings, while the rain and driving wind clattered against the window, and roared round the house. Added to this, the sickening sensation of disease gained upon me. No time was to be lost, if ever I would see her again. I mounted my horse and rode out to seek her, fancying that I heard her voice in every gust, oppressed by fever and aching pain. I rode in the dark and rain through the labyrinthine streets of unpeopled London. My child lay dead at home. The seeds of mortal disease had taken root in my bosom. I went to seek Idris, my adored, now wandering alone, while the waters were rushing from heaven like a cataract to bathe her dear head in a chill damp, her fair limbs in numbing cold. A female stood on the step of a door and called to me as I galloped past. It was not Idris so I rode swiftly on, until a kind of second sight, a reflection back again on my senses of what I had seen, but not marked, made me feel sure that another figure, thin, graceful and tall, stood clinging to the foremost person who supported her. In a minute I was beside the supplient. In a minute I received the sinking Idris on my arms. Lifting her up I placed her on the horse. She had not strength to support herself, so I mounted behind her and held her close to my bosom, wrapping my riding-click round her, while her companion, who's well known, but changed countenance. It was Juliet, daughter of the Duke, could at this moment of horror obtain from me no more than a passing glance of compassion. She took the abandoned rain and conducted our obedient steed homewards. Dare I avouch it? That was the last moment of my happiness. But I was happy. Idris must die for her heart was broken. I must die for I had caught the plague. Earth was a scene of desolation. Hope was madness. Life had married death. They were one. But thus supporting my fainting love, thus feeling that I must soon die, I reveled in the delight of possessing her once more. Again and again I kissed her and pressed her to my heart. We arrived at our home. I assisted her to dismount. I carried her upstairs and gave her into Clara's care, that her wet garments might be changed. Briefly I assured Adrian of her safety and requested that we might be left to repose. As the miser who with trembling caution visits his treasure to count it again and again, so I numbered each moment and grudged every one that was not spent with Idris. I returned swiftly to the chamber where the life of my life reposed, before I entered the room I paused for a few seconds, for a few seconds I tried to examine my state. Sickness and shuddering ever and a non came over me. My head was heavy, my chest depressed, my legs bent under me, but I threw off resolutely the swift growing symptoms of my disorder, and met Idris with placid and even joyous looks. She was lying on a couch, carefully fastening the door to prevent all intrusion. I sat by her, we embraced, and our lips met in a kiss, long drawn and breathless. Would that moment had been my last? Maternal feeling now woke in my poor girl's bosom, and she asked, and Alfred? Idris, I replied, we are spared to each other, we are together. Do not let any other idea intrude. I am happy even on this fatal night. I declare myself happy beyond all name, all thought, what would you more sweet one? Idris understood me. She bowed her head on my shoulder and wept. Why, she again asked, do you tremble, and what shakes you thus? Well, may I be shaken, I replied, happy as I am. Our child is dead, and the present hour is dark and ominous. Well, may I tremble, but I am happy, my known Idris, most happy. I understand thee, my kind love, said Idris, thus pale as thou art with sorrow at our loss, trembling in a ghast, thou wouldest assuage my grief by thy dear assurances. I am not happy. And the tears flashed and fell from under her downcast lids, for we are inmates of a miserable prison, and there is no joy for us. But the true love I bear, you will render this, and every other loss, indurable. We have been happy together, at least, I said. No future misery can deprive us of the past. We have been true to each other for years, ever since my sweet princess love came through the snow to the lowly cottage of the poverty-stricken air of the ruined verny. Even now that eternity is before us, we take hope only from the presence of each other. Idris, do you think that when we die we shall be divided? Die? When we die, what mean you? What secret lies hid from me in those dreadful words? Must we not all die, dearest? I asked with a sad smile. Gracious God, are you ill, Lionel, that you speak of death? My only friend, heart of my heart speak. I do not think, replied I, that we have any of us long to live, and when the curtain drops on this mortal scene, where, think you, we shall find ourselves? Idris was calmed by my unembarrassed tone and look. She answered, You may easily believe that during this long progress of the plague, I have thought much on death, and asked myself, now that all mankind is dead to this life, to what other life they may have been born. Hour after hour I have dwelt on these thoughts, and drove to form a rational conclusion concerning the mystery of a future state. What a scarecrow, indeed, would death be, if we were merely to cast aside the shadow in which we now walk, and stepping forth into the unclouded sunshine of knowledge and love, revived with the same companions, the same affections, and reached the fulfilment of our hopes, leaving our fears with our earthly vesture in the grave. Alas, the same strong feeling which makes me sure that I shall not wholly die, makes me refuse to believe that I shall live wholly as I do now. Yet, Lionel, never, never can I love any but you. Through eternity I must desire your society, and as I am innocent of harm to others, and as relying and confident as my mortal nature permits, I trust that the ruler of the world will never tear us asunder. Your remarks are like yourself, dear love, replied I, gentle and good. Let us cherish such a belief and dismiss anxiety from our minds, but, sweet, we are so formed, and there is no sin, if God made our nature, to yield to what he ordains. We are so formed that we must love life and cling to it. We must love the living smile, the sympathetic touch, and thrilling voice, peculiar to our mortal mechanism. Let us not, through security and herafter, neglect the present. This present moment, short as it is, is a part of eternity, and the dearest part since it is our own and alienably. Thou, the hope of my futurity, art my present joy. Let me then look on thy dear eyes, and reading love in them, drink intoxicating pleasure. Timidly, for my vermin, somewhat terrified her, Idris looked on me. My eyes were bloodshot, starting from my head. Every artery beat me thought audibly, every muscle throbbed, each single nerve felt. Her look of wilder fright told me that I could no longer keep my secret. So it is my known beloved, I said, the last hour of many happy ones has arrived, nor can we shun any longer the inevitable destiny. I cannot live long, but again and again I say this moment is ours. Payler than marble with white lips and convulsed features, Idris became aware of my situation. My arm as I sat encircled her waist, she felt the palm burn with fever, even on the heart it pressed. One moment she murmured scarce audibly. Only one moment. She kneeled and hiding her face in her hands uttered a brief but earnest prayer that she might fulfil her duty and watch over me to the last. While there was hope the agony had been unendurable, all was now concluded, her feelings became solemn and calm. Even as Epicaris and perturbed and firm submitted to the instruments of torture did Idris suppressing every sigh and sign of grief enter upon the endurance of torments, of which the rack and the wheel are but faint and metaphysical symbols. I was changed, the tight drawn cord that sounded so harshly was loosened, the moment that Idris participated in my knowledge of our real situation. The perturbed and impassioned tossed waves of thoughts subsided, leaving only the heavy swell that kept right on without any outward manifestation of its disturbance till it should break on the remote shore towards which I rapidly advanced. It is true that I am sick, I said, and your society might Idris is my only medicine, come and sit beside me. She made me lie down on the couch and, drawing a low Ottoman near, sat close to my pillow, pressing my burning hands in her cold palms. She yielded to my feverish restlessness, and let me talk, and talk to me, on subjects strange indeed to beings who thus looked the last and heard the last of what they loved alone in the world. We talked of times gone by, of the happy period of our early love, of Raymond, Perdita and Evanni. We talked of what might arise on this desert earth, if two or three being saved it were slowly repealed. We talked of what was beyond the tomb, and man in his human shape being nearly extinct, we felt with certainty of faith that other spirits, other minds, other perceptive beings, sightless to us must people with thought and love this beautious and imperishable universe. We talked, I know not how long, but in the morning I awoke from a painful heavy slumber, the pale cheek of Idris rested on my pillow. The large orbs of her eyes half-raised the lids, and shewed the deep blue lights beneath, her lips were unclosed, and the slight mermas they formed told that even while asleep she suffered. If she were dead I thought, what difference, now that form is the temple of a residing deity. Those eyes are the windows of her soul, all grace, love and intelligence are thrown on that lovely bosom, where she dead, where would this mind, the dearer half of mine be? For quickly the fair proportion of this edifice would be more defaced than other sound-checked ruins of the desert temples of Palmyra. End of Chapter T