---Would he who wrote this have written it the less, if he had felt at the moment that the desire was unattainable? XXXIX Without presumption, the narrator may believe he has reached the final experience, the latest crisis at least, of life that he sees the dead desert level before him, the array of the unreconciling years. There I shall confront the gradual indifference of friends to one inevitably dissonant from their tone of unmerciful and healthy happiness, the world's bitter scorn of sorrow,-the absence of Désirée : there patience will bring no peace, and submission no comfort, duty be without reward, and love almost without loveliness. So fearful a prospect, must it not lead anyone to ask whether the wiser part were not to relinquish the vain warfare, give hands of surrender to victor Fate, and take my Lady Death for Bride, where no further hope remains? If, not from deference to this world's contempt or censure, but to the soul's own ignorance of the further world, we refrain,-we may live, it must not be concealed from self, to regret the years that are to come. O that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, 'that I should prolong my life?' The one only left is now the Patriarch's pathetic prayer :-yet this consummation even may annihilate the remembrance, which with its bitterness whatever, I would not willingly surrender, if Heaven itself is to be gained by transit of Lethe. Life is dark, but death is darker. Vivi adunque: nullo ti puo di questo privare. But, ah! dear one-whose name I think, but shall not even write henceforward,-thus to die, and without having lived, is the true sting of death. Of what may lie beyond, when we have said inscrutable, we have said all. That veil will be rent for us by no earthquake: nor can we foretell if the great darkness beneath which we shall pass will dawn into humanly conscious resurrection. Like the Lady of Athenian drama, οὔτε τι τοῦ θανεῖν προμηθὴς, τό τε μὴ βλέπειν ἑτοῖμος, when surrendering in the reluctances of final agony the last thought and fond movement of affection towards thee, the soul will know no more than at the hour of birth what manner of life shall follow this which she has purchased so dearly. . . . O what blessedness beyond prophetic anticipations, should that new world be the completion and sunlight ideal of this should we retain all that was pure in mortal hope and aim, our memories of the earthly past, our own better selves in glorified but unbroken identity; should faithfulness at last meet with the one reward, love so long given with love at last returned, at last-Fool, again the dream, the fancy! So fearful is the mystery of earth, are not things done here which cannot be undone by Thrones and Dominations, by all the Powers of Heaven? I think I have loved truly: I struggled long: I have been corrected in anger, and brought to nothing: do manus it is in vain. Far out in the western sea there is a broken rock; the birds of heaven know it, the Atlantic smiles around, the sunlight sleeps on it for a summer's day in a peace which seems of more than earthly peacefulness. But the moon has arisen, she draws the waters toward her, caressingly at first, then more and more angrily they heave themselves and beat:-the heavens are gradually overshadowing, but the moonbeams work behind; Ocean obeys, the white-edged waves set their teeth against the pillar. As they rise to cover it, the warfare and the antagonism deepen, louder and higher the voices of sea and land are heard, some great drama appears in agitation between living Powers, some superhuman catastrophe,— long visible by the light of foam, by the straggling and misty stars, by the moonbeams seen as if in another world spread upon the far horizon. The waves press on, they cast themselves in columns over the rock, the sea boils as if impassioned by inner fires: here is haste, and night, and thunder, and final agony; there, above the solid clouds, peace and holy light, and the fair face of the dominant spirit. She looks down: but the night has gathered far beyond her piercing, and the issue of that conflict is blotted out :--hoarse shouting, sounds as if of beating hands, prayers, and cries, and crashing weapons: then silence. Is it peace or death? There is no answer, no atom of light in earth or heaven, the waters are voiceless now, and the last eddy circles away into infinity and the blackness of darkness. The tide has its reflux, and the storm its pacification: but there is no better day for this evil, no after-hope of any blessing. Ah, dearest--I said to die unsatisfied is the worst bitterness of Death: but this I find bitterer still, that I may not dare to promise thee an eternity of affection, this love from childhood through the real Ever. REFERENCES AND TRANSLATIONS Thinking the catalogue would be unnecessary to those who love poetry, and tedious to those who do not, I have not included in this Index references to the shorter quotations and allusions in the text. This addition would indeed have almost amounted to another volume. The writer has borrowed on all sides: he is more Editor than Author: readers inclined to approve any single thought or phrase will do well (he warns them), to reserve their favour for those, qui ante nos nostra dixere. PAGE JUNE, 1857. 2 (1) From all who know love by trial I hope to find pity, if not pardon.-PETRARCH: Son. i. (2) I am not made like any other men I have seen.— ROUSSEAU: Confessions, B. i. 3 They put up a fine statue to Time, with this inscription, TO THE CONSOLER..-VOLTAIRE: Les deux Consolés. 4 AUGUSTINE: Confessions, B. xi, c. 2. 5 Infantia mea olim mortua est, et ego vivo.-Confessions, B. i, c. 6. 8 (1) Little one, I saw you gathering the dewy apples in our orchard-croft with your mother, and I was your guide; I was young in my twelfth year then I saw, I was undone, ah how ! . -VIRGIL: Ecl. viii, 37. (2) I cannot rightly tell how I entered it.—Inferno, c. i. II Our way of life and dwelling places are still always the same, and no new pleasure forges itself as we live on.— LUCRETIUS: B. iii, 1078. PAGE 17 (1) Winter's Tale, Act i, sc. 2. (2) If I interweave truth with ornament, if in some part I grace my pages with other charms than thine.-T. TASSO: Gierusalemme, Cl. 1, st. 2. 23 RUSKIN, Notes on the Turner Gallery. 26 The Presence of the Gods becomes visible and their tranquil dwelling-places: the winds cannot shake, or the mists encloud them; the hoary snow, gathering beneath the energy of frost, forces no entrance nor can rest there ; cloudless aether ever surrounds, and smiles on them in floods of immeasurable radiance.-LUCRETIUS: B. iii, 18. 28 If such glory has any real weight.-VIRGIL: Aeneid, B. vii, 4. 30 (1) Lavinia my bride is thine. (2) Lycoris, here are fresh springs, here are trees and deep meadows; here I could consume an eternity on love and thee.-VIRGIL: Ecl. x, 42. 33 (1) The spirit of Youth. (2) As a translation, I shall quote a fragment from André Chénier; Et les baisers secrets et les lits clandestins. The original is from MIMNERMUS: Nanno. 34 Her bearing, words, countenance, and dress.-PETRARCH: Son. cclxxii. 37 She hears men praise her and passes on veiled in the grace of modesty, and seems a Miracle sent earth from heaven.— Vita Nuova: Son. xiii. 38 Dante has told this vision twice: the translation in the text is adapted from both versions. Pareami vedere il sole oscurare sì che le stelle si mostravano d'un colore che mi facea giudicare che piangessero : e parevamí che gli uccelli volando cadessero morti, e che fossero grandissimi terremoti. . Ed uom m'apparve scolorito e fioco —διακειμένοις οὕτω περιέσεσθαι Τίμων [Φλιάσιος] φησὶ πρῶτον μὲν ἀφασίαν, ἔπειτα δ ̓ ἀταραξίαν. PRELLER: Hist. of Philos. § 347, ed. 1838. |