Kabanata Kabanata 23 · THE VILLAGE STREET（1）

In these rapid, restless shadows,

Once I walked at eventide,

When a gentle, silent maiden,

Walked in beauty at my side.

She alone there walked beside me

All in beauty, like a bride.

Pallidly the moon was shining

On the dewy meadows nigh;

On the silvery, silent rivers,

On the mountains far and high,--

On the ocean's star-lit waters,

Where the winds a-weary die.

Slowly, silently we wandered

From the open cottage door,

Underneath the elm's long branches

To the pavement bending o'er;

Underneath the mossy willow

And the dying sycamore.

With the myriad stars in beauty

All bedight, the heavens were seen,

Radiant hopes were bright around me,

Like the light of stars serene;

Like the mellow midnight splendor

Of the Night's irradiate queen.

Audibly the elm-leaves whispered

Peaceful, pleasant melodies,

Like the distant murmured music

Of unquiet, lovely seas;

While the winds were hushed in slumber

In the fragrant flowers and trees.

Wondrous and unwonted beauty

Still adorning all did seem,

While I told my love in fables

'Neath the willows by the stream;

Would the heart have kept unspoken

Love that was its rarest dream!

Instantly away we wandered

In the shadowy twilight tide,

She, the silent, scornful maiden,

Walking calmly at my side,

With a step serene and stately,

All in beauty, all in pride.

Vacantly I walked beside her.

On the earth mine eyes were cast;

Swift and keen there came unto me

Bitter memories of the past--

On me, like the rain in Autumn

On the dead leaves, cold and fast.

Underneath the elms we parted,

By the lowly cottage door;

One brief word alone was uttered--

Never on our lips before;

And away I walked forlornly,

Broken-hearted evermore.

Slowly, silently I loitered,

Homeward, in the night, alone;

Sudden anguish bound my spirit,

That my youth had never known;

Wild unrest, like that which cometh

When the Night's first dream hath flown.

Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper

Mad, discordant melodies,

And keen melodies like shadows

Haunt the moaning willow trees,

And the sycamores with laughter

Mock me in the nightly breeze.

Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight

Through the sighing foliage streams;

And each morning, midnight shadow,

Shadow of my sorrow seems;

Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!

And, O soul, forget thy dreams!

* * * * *

THE FOREST REVERIE.

'Tis said that when

The hands of men

Tamed this primeval wood,

And hoary trees with groans of wo,

Like warriors by an unknown foe,

Were in their strength subdued,

The virgin Earth

Gave instant birth

To springs that ne'er did flow--

That in the sun

Did rivulets run,

And all around rare flowers did blow--

The wild rose pale

Perfumed the gale,

And the queenly lily adown the dale

(Whom the sun and the dew

And the winds did woo),

With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears

The love of years

Is wasted like the snow,

And the fine fibrils of its life

By the rude wrong of instant strife

Are broken at a blow--

Within the heart

Do springs upstart

Of which it doth now know,

And strange, sweet dreams,

Like silent streams

That from new fountains overflow,

With the earlier tide

Of rivers glide

Deep in the heart whose hope has died--

Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--

Its ashes, whence will spring and grow

Sweet flowers, ere long,--

The rare and radiant flowers of song!

* * * * *

NOTES.

Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe,

and not included among his known writings, the lines entitled "Alone"

have the chief claim to our notice. 'Fac-simile' copies of this piece

had been in possession of the present editor some time previous to its

publication in 'Scribner's Magazine' for September 1875; but as proofs

of the authorship claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from

publishing it as requested. The desired proofs have not yet been

adduced, and there is, at present, nothing but internal evidence to

guide us. "Alone" is stated to have been written by Poe in the album of

a Baltimore lady (Mrs. Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and the

'fac-simile' given in 'Scribner's' is alleged to be of his handwriting.

If the caligraphy be Poe's, it is different in all essential respects

from all the many specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of

the writer of the heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which

the contributor of the poem acknowledges to have been recently added.

The lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most successful imitation of

his early mannerisms yet made public, and, in the opinion of one well

qualified to speak, "are not unworthy on the whole of the parentage

claimed for them."

Whilst Edgar Poe was editor of the 'Broadway Journal', some lines "To

Isadore" appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore

no signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy

questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared, saying they

were by "A. Ide, junior." Two previous poems had appeared in the

'Broadway Journal' over the signature of "A. M. Ide," and whoever wrote

them was also the author of the lines "To Isadore." In order, doubtless,

to give a show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known

works in his journal over 'noms de plume', and as no other writings

whatever can be traced to any person bearing the name of "A. M. Ide," it

is not impossible that the poems now republished in this collection may

be by the author of "The Raven." Having been published without his usual

elaborate revision, Poe may have wished to hide his hasty work under an

assumed name. The three pieces are included in the present collection,

so the reader can judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be

by the author of "The Raven."

* * * * *

PROSE POEMS.

* * * * *

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY.

"Nullus enim locus sine genio est."

_Servius_.

"_La musique_," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux"[1] which in all

our translations we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as if in

mockery of their spirit--"_la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse

de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins_." He here confounds

the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating

them. No more than any other _talent_, is that for music susceptible of

complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its

exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces

_effects_ which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the

_raconteur_ has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in

its expression to his national love of _point_, is doubtless the very

tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly

estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form

will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and

for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach

of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than

does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness

experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man

who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude

behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only,

but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow

upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at

war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark

valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the

forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains

that look down upon all,--I love to regard these as themselves but the

colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole--a whole whose

form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all;

whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the

moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose

thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies

are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our

own cognizance of the _animalculæ_ which infest the brain, a being which

we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the

same manner as these _animalculæ_ must thus regard us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every

hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood,

that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in

the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those

best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest

possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such

as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of

matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate

a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces

otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object

with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of

matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter

with vitality is a principle--indeed, as far as our judgments extend,

the _leading_ principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely

logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we

daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find

cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant

centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the

same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all

within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through

self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future

destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of

the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul,

for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation

[2].

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations

among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a

tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic.

My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and

often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many

a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright

lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have

strayed and gazed _alone._ What flippant Frenchman [3] was it who said,

in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that _"la solitude est

une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude

est une belle chose"_? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity

is a thing that does not exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of

mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns

writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet

and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw

myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub,

that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only

should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose

the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply

in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no

exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of

the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to

me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly

and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall

from the sunset fountains of the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one

small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the

stream.

So blended bank and shadow there,

That each seemed pendulous in air--

so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to

say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal

dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both

the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a

singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one

radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye

of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was

short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were

lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure

and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a

deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out

the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to

and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for

tulips with wings [4].

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade.

A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things.

The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude--

wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that

conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the

deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly,

and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low

and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were

not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary

clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and

seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element

with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower

and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth,

and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued

momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus

entombed.

This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I

lost myself forthwith in reverie. "If ever island were enchanted," said

I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who

remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?--or do

they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying,

do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by

little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow,

exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to

the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys

upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to

rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing

upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the

sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a

quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I

thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays

about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness

from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in

a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an

oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude

seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within

the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and

re-entered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made

by the Fay," continued I musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of

her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She

is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came

into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the

dark water, making its blackness more black."

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the

latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy.

She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened

momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and

became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the

circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and

at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person,

while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each

passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became

whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly

departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went

disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and

that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all

things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.

[Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived from _moeurs_, and its meaning is

"_fashionable_," or, more strictly, "of manners."]

[Footnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise,

'De Sitû Orbis', says,

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

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

[Footnote 4:

"Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera."

'P. Commire'.]

* * * * *

THE POWER OF WORDS.

'Oinos.'

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

immortality!

'Agathos.'

You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded.

Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of

the angels freely, that it may be given!

'Oinos.'

But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of

all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.

'Agathos.'

Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of

knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know

all, were the curse of a fiend.

'Oinos.'

But does not The Most High know all?

'Agathos'.

_That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing

unknown even to HIM.

'Oinos.'

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

be known?

'Agathos.'

Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the gaze down

the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them

thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all

points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?--the

walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has

appeared to blend into unity?

'Oinos'.

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

'Agathos'.

There are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that, of this

infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs

at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever

unquenchable within it--since to quench it would be to extinguish the

soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear.

Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and

swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion,

where, for pansies and violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the

triplicate and triple-tinted suns.

'Oinos'.

And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in the

earth's familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just

now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were

accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is

not God?

'Agathos'.

I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

'Oinos'.

Explain!

'Agathos'.

In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now

throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only

be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or

immediate results of the Divine creative power.

'Oinos.'

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

extreme.

'Agathos.'

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

'Oinos.'

I can comprehend you thus far--that certain operations of what we term

Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise

to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the

final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very

successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to

denominate the creation of animalculæ.

'Agathos.'

The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary

creation, and of the _only_ species of creation which has ever been

since the first word spoke into existence the first law.

'Oinos.'

Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst

hourly forth into the heavens--are not these stars, Agathos, the

immediate handiwork of the King?

'Agathos.'

Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the

conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can

perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for

example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so doing we gave

vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was

indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to every particle of the

earth's air, which thenceforward, _and forever_, was actuated by the

one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe

well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid

by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation--so that it

became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given

extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the

atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty; from

a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of

the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results

of any given impulse were absolutely endless--and who saw that a

portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency

of algebraic analysis--who saw, too, the facility of the

retrogradation--these men saw, at the same time, that this species of

analysis itself had within itself a capacity for indefinite

progress--that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and

applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or

applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.

'Oinos.'

And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?

'Agathos.'

Because there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was

deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite

understanding--one to whom the _perfection_ of the algebraic analysis

lay unfolded--there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse

given the air--and the ether through the air--to the remotest

consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed

demonstrable that every such impulse _given the air_, must _in the

end_ impress every individual thing that exists _within the

universe;_--and the being of infinite understanding--the being whom

we have imagined--might trace the remote undulations of the

impulse--trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all

particles of all matter--upward and onward forever in their

modifications of old forms--or, in other words, _in their creation of

new_--until he found them reflected--unimpressive _at last_--back from

the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this,

but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him--should one of

these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his

inspection--he could have no difficulty in determining, by the

analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This

power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection--this

faculty of referring at _all_ epochs, _all_ effects to _all_

causes--is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone--but in every

variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power

itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic Intelligences.

'Oinos'.

But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.

'Agathos'.

In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the general

proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether--which, since it

pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of

_creation_.

'Oinos'.

Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?

'Agathos'.

It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all

motion is thought--and the source of all thought is--

'Oinos'.

God.

'Agathos'.

I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth which

lately perished--of impulses upon the atmosphere of the earth.

'Oinos'.

You did.

'Agathos'.

And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of

the _physical power of words_? Is not every word an impulse on the

air?

'Oinos'.

But why, Agathos, do you weep--and why, oh, why do your wings droop as

we hover above this fair star--which is the greenest and yet most

terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant

flowers look like a fairy dream--but its fierce volcanoes like the

passions of a turbulent heart.

'Agathos'.

They _are_!--they _are_!--This wild star--it is now three centuries

since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my

beloved--I spoke it--with a few passionate sentences--into birth. Its

brilliant flowers _are_ the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its

raging volcanoes _are_ the passions of the most turbulent and

unhallowed of hearts!

* * * * *

THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.

[Greek: Mellonta sauta']

These things are in the future.

_Sophocles_--'Antig.'

'Una.'

"Born again?"

'Monos.'

Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." These were the words

upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the

explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself resolved for me the

secret.

'Una.'

Death!

'Monos.'

How strangely, sweet _Una_, you echo my words! I observe, too, a

vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are

confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal.

Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word

which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew

upon all pleasures!

'Una.'

Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often, Monos, did

we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously

did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, "thus far, and

no farther!" That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned

within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy

in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen with its

strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that

evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus in time it

became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.

'Monos'.

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

'Una'.

But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much to

say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the

incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.

'Monos'.

And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will

be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the weird narrative

begin?

'Una'.

At what point?

'Monos'.

You have said.

'Una'.

Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity

of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with

the moment of life's cessation--but commence with that sad, sad

instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a

breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid

eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.

'Monos'.

One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general condition at this

epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our

forefathers--wise in fact, although not in the world's esteem--had

ventured to doubt the propriety of the term "improvement," as applied

to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the

five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose

some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose

truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious

--principles which should have taught our race to submit to the

guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At

long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance

in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility.

Occasionally the poetic intellect--that intellect which we now feel to

have been the most exalted of all--since those truths which to us were

of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that

_analogy_ which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to

the unaided reason bears no weight--occasionally did this poetic

intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of

the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree

of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct

intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition

of his soul. And these men--the poets--living and perishing amid the

scorn of the "utilitarians"--of rough pedants, who arrogated to

themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the

scorned--these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely,

upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our

enjoyments were keen--days when _mirth_ was a word unknown, so

solemnly deep-toned was happiness--holy, august, and blissful days,

blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest

solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored. Yet these noble

exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by

opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil

days. The great "movement"--that was the cant term--went on: a

diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art--the Arts--arose supreme,

and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated

them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty

of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and

still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a

God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might

be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with

system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities.

Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and

in the face of analogy and of God--in despite of the loud warning

voice of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in

Earth and Heaven--wild attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were

made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil,

Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking

cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath

of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages

of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our

slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have

arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own

destruction in the perversion of our _taste_, or rather in the blind

neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this

crisis that taste alone--that faculty which, holding a middle position

between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely

have been disregarded--it was now that taste alone could have led us

gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure

contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the

[Greek: mousichae] which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient

education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!--since both were most

desperately needed, when both were most entirely forgotten or despised

[1]. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how

truly!--"_Que tout notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au

sentiment;_" and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the

natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency

over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was

not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old

age of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or,

living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for

myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin as

the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our

Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria

the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than

either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these

regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual

artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth,

and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied;

but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration

save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw

that he must be "_born again._"