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Page 93
_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 up-springing, 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 masterminds
appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a
retro-gradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic
intellect - that intellect which we now feel to have been the most
exalted of all - since those truths which to us were of the most
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogywhich 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, when blue
rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes,
prim�val, 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 an Heaven - wild attempts at an omni-prevalent
Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the
leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb.
Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank
before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was
deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks,
sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the
far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we
had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or
rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the 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 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}
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