Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: Livro I Seguinte: Livro III
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LIVRO II
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‘A man’s genius determines for him the character of the Universe. As a man thinketh, so he is. A man is a method, a selecting principle, gathering his like to him wherever he goes.
* * * * *
‘He takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles around him.’ – R. W. EMERSON’S ‘Spiritual Laws.’
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CHAPTER I
From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal.
August 30, 1849.
I AM certainly gaining strength. This is a pleasant interval of rest. While alone I cannot do better than to recommence my journal. Curious, how short and disconnectedly the sentences come – like my breathing. My fingers can hardly grasp the pencil. They are become strangers – there is no rapport between them. Perchance the pencil has a perception of its own, and sees in me one unexpectedly returned from the confines of another world, and trembles at the contact. No matter: effort though it be, perseverance will soon make us better acquainted.
How delicious after the burning day is the calm and cool of this oasis in the vast prairie desert. Were it not for the sake of the others I should wish that the strayed cattle might not be found for a week. May be they will never be found. Hungry Indians, or hungrier travellers, may have made roast beef of them by this time. What would I not give for some roast beef too! Beside this lagoon, and under these shady trees, with yonder waggon for my fortress of retreat from wild beasts, I could gladly remain here so long as the provisions last. I little thought when I descried the greenness of this spot through the heated exhalations of the
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weary, weary plain, that it would be my home so long. This is the third day of rest. The strength I have gained since I left the diggings, on the river, encourages me to hope it may not be very long before I can get to work again. The waggon reminded me of a coffin when they lifted me into it. Certainly a corpse could hardly have been more helpless. I am sure the doctor meant me when he shook his head and said something to the Major about not lasting many days. But even at my worst I have had no notion of dying in this country – I have another destiny than that: – then the jolting and struggling up that dreadful hill, – yet the mere breathing of the air on the top was like champagne to me. I wonder if the exhalations from the river are poisonous. I have certainly taken a new lease of life since I left it. My food seems to do me some good now – perhaps leaving off physic has something to do with it. How I loathed that dreadful salt pork, and those tough greasy slapjacks. If healthy men get the scurvy upon them, small hope of my recovering my health with nothing else to eat. How fortunate I was in being able to buy these hams, and what an inspiration was the idea of substituting boiling for that perpetual frying. And now with the addition of the Major’s venison, and bread made of sweet flour, all I want is time. And then to work again; to draw forth from the banks of mother earth the rich deposits that there await my draft.
The labour is harder than I had any idea of, but the gold is there. What a predicament we should now be in if it had not been! What with the cost of travelling up from the coast, and provisions and tools, we were almost penniless on reaching the mines. And most of
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the party were still worse on, and I have made no provision for obtaining money from England. I little thought to be the first to benefit by the rule I insisted upon as a condition of partnership. I believe the two brothers left the party in consequence of it. Yet what could be more fair, independently of its humanity, than that a sick man should receive a half-share of the produce in consideration of his ownership in the claim? How full of hope were we all during the first fortnight when we all worked together, and how pleasant the excitement of guessing at the result of the day’s washings previous to weighing it. Nearly one hundred ounces were divided between the four in the first fortnight, and the ground was getting richer. Then came that terrible sunstroke. Shall I ever forget the horror of the burning fever and the stifling tent, when all sense of time ceased, and I was conscious only of an intense longing to get cool. The early sensations were exactly opposite to those I felt once on board ship after sleeping exposed to the full moonlight. Then my head felt light, and deprived of the force necessary for controlling my movements whether mental or physical. I lost all power of application. The brain seemed shrunk or partially paralysed but the effect passed away in two or three days. The first action of the sunstroke was to make me throw myself on the ground in an exceedingly ill temper, and break into tears. The head seemed suddenly filled to bursting, and I longed for some one to draw off the superfluous electricity, or whatever I was surcharged with, by making mesmeric passes over me. That I felt would cure me at once. Certainly, so far as sensations go, I have proved the truth of the mesmeric theory of
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the opposite nature of the magnetic influence of the sun and moon. The one is positive and imparts force, and the other negative and withdraws it.
How kind the Major has been all through my illness, sticking to me, and declaring he won’t leave me till I can take care of myself, and not even then unless I wish it. I verily believe the fever would have burnt me up during the three worst days, but for the perpetual buckets of cold water which he carried up from the river and flung over me. Even that could not cool me: it seemed to fly off as from a hot iron. I am sure that second and worst attack was brought on by the morphine the doctor gave me. If I had not always taken a great interest in mental phenomena those spectral illusions would have driven me wild with terror. But I knew what they were, and could think of Abererombie’s book while watching them. It seemed akin to magic that the eye should see whatever the mind thought of, and I delighted in exercising the power. They only came one night. Though distinct and bright, I could, by gazing intently, look completely through them, and see the side of the tent beyond. I could always lose sight of them by changing the focus of the eyes to a greater or less distance. After the first few changes they got beyond my control. I could not call them up or change them at will, and certainly some of them were horrid enough to scare any one out of his senses who did not keep in mind their unreality. Whether it was a shot really fired or not that suggested the vision I don’t know, but I fancied I saw a fight between a party of Mexicans and Indians, and then two big ferocious-looking savages marched slowly by me carrying on their shoulders a half-killed
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Mexican, whose tongue was hanging out black and swollen, and his eyes starting from their sockets, and as they carried him along they bit large mouthfuls of flesh out of their writhing captive, and chewed them with delight. I recognised the Mexican’s face. It was one that had haunted my childhood in a picture of a sailor with the black vomit being flung overboard while yet living. This horrid vision was dispelled by a movement of the tent wall close beside me. Turning towards it I saw it gently lifted up, and a figure enveloped in a dark cloak crept in and lay down beside me. I raised the cloak and discovered a headless trunk. Then the tent seemed full of water running rapidly past me, an illusion probably caused by the sound of the river, as it was the most persistent of the illusions, ever recurring in the interval of the others. Then the ground was covered with huge ants, busily digging and bringing up large grains of gold, which they deposited on the surface, and then went down for more. And then I saw through the openings they made that the soil below was all gold, and gold, and gold without end. Presently a bright light appeared in the air, and as it descended towards me, took the appearance of a wreath of flowers, and in the midst of the wreath were two hands clasped, and two initial letters over them; and while I wondered what this could mean (for although I knew some one bearing those initials, I never was in love with her, though I used to fancy I might easily become so), the wreath vanished, and the light diffused itself, lighting up the whole tent, so that I could see my companions sleeping beside me, and the arms stacked against the pole, almost as distinctly as by daylight. In two or three minutes all was dark
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again. I sank back exhausted, and slept. The action of the drug had reached another stage. The sleep was not one of refreshment, but was filled with dreams so terrific that my cries roused my companions from the depth of their weary slumbers. I can remember every particular of my waking visions, but I cannot recall the dreams. Only the vague sense of their horror remains with me. During the next three days raged the fever, from being consumed by which the Major preserved me by buckets of water. Here they come with a hare, or, as the teamster calls it, a ‘jackass rabbit,’ and some grey squirrels, but no oxen. This writing has quite exhausted me, but I must at least save them the trouble of making coffee.
31st. The major and the teamster are off again in the prairie. Thinking over my notes of yesterday, as I lay awake and feverish last night, it occurred to me that it must be utterly impossible for any one to be certain that the source from which he gets visions and revelations is a supernatural or extraordinary one. The whole of such recorded wonders may, like my illusions, be due to pressure on the brain from the excitement of fever or inflammation. The agent in the sudden conversion of St. Paul may have been a sunstroke acting on a mind already in a state of extreme tension, as we know his was. A slight fact affords sufficient foundation for a vast fabric of legend. The whole proof that can exist for any man is only a strong impression on his mind. Its indelibility is no proof of its truth. To assert that anything is supernatural, is to assert that we know all that is in nature, and also something of that which lies beyond. It seems to me to be absolutely impossible for
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any man to be certain that he has held direct communication with God. Man may have an overwhelming sense that something claiming to be God has spoken to him; but unless he has a prior and personal knowledge of God, he knows not but that it may be a demon assuming the garb of light, or a fantastic creation of his own excited fancy. It still behoves him to judge the communication by its own intrinsic character, and to deliberate upon the actions to which it impels him. Thus reason must be the judge of revelation. The principles of our nature are for us the only sure revelation. Supposing one impelled without provocation to take the life of the innocent, and ascribing the impulse to God. What shall be said of him? A jury of his countrymen might have recommended Abraham to mercy on the ground of insanity, but they would surely have advised that he be locked up for the general security; – supposing the story of Isaac to be more than a mere legend, or a moral fable, illustrating the superiority of second thoughts over hasty impressions. There can be little doubt however, that, whether true or not, it was written to inculcate the duty of unquestioning obedience to whatever might be deemed a divine command, without making oneself a judge of the propriety of the action, and written therefore with an immoral purpose. But though it bears this upon the face of it, the narrative may yet have had another signification, and one suited to those times – namely, that human sacrifice is not acceptable to the Deity; for Abraham was arrested in the act of offering it. A condemnation, by the way, of the Calvinistic theory of the atonement.
Our teamster is a native of Missouri. He has never
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seen the sea, never tasted porter, and does not know what an orange is. But he is even more astonished at the limited character of my experiences than I am at that of his. He can scarcely credit that I had never ridden in a bullock waggon before I rode in his. He takes the time lost in hunting for his cattle wonderfully easily, considering that time is indeed money to him; but it seems that a backwoodsman generally spends at least half his life in the same pursuit. I inquired if the prevailing salt pork was the staple food in Missouri? ‘No, Sirr,’ was the indignant response; ‘there we have good fat bacon, and plenty of it!’ I wish we could have worked out our claim instead of selling it. If that American had not fallen ill just as I began to mend, it might have been done. But I should never have got well there. The Major might have made a good thing of it by hiring hands to work it out, and I could still have retained my share, for I should feel no hesitation in trusting my interests with him. Even though he cannot take care of his own money, so reckless and profuse is he, – and he knows it himself, for he insisted on my taking charge of all he had, before we left the ship, – still I feel sure that he would be scrupulously careful of anybody else’s interest. And the fact of feeling in honour bound to be careful, would be good discipline for him. However, he insisted on selling out too, saying that he could return to the mines when I got well. Or if I am tired of the country, he will go home, or anywhere else with me. He recommends the Sandwich Islands, and says I shall certainly die of consumption if I remain the winter in this country. On this point we differ, for I feel that all I want is cool bracing weather to set me up again.
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He reminds me that the year for which I told him I came abroad is nearly over – will be up, in fact, by the time I can get home. Shall I go? and for what? To be a nine days’ wonder among my friends, and to be ordained. I am in honour bound to take orders if I return. It is the only way in which I can make any return for the expense both of my education and of this year’s grace.
No. I shall never take orders till I either change my opinions or am disposed to perjure myself. That settles the question of returning to England. Here will I remain until I am rich enough to be able to profess my own opinions, or at least not to act contrary to them, whenever I may go home. Living out of the world of action as my parents and all their friends do, I have no chance of finding any occupation which will afford me a living, except that for which I was brought up.
What a bitter satire upon my native country have I just written. But so it must be while the vested interests of society prefer their own aggrandisement to truth. Oaths, oaths; on all sides oaths. Oaths political and oaths ecclesiastical; all to maintain the existing fabric of opinion and custom. If they really believe that whatever is really best, and can be demonstrated to be so, why so anxious to bind men forcibly not to change it, unless to render all progress impossible? What can be more demoralising than to make the very bread of whole classes depend upon their either suppressing their real opinions, or having none, and acting a sham instead?
Looking at the young men of the best class I have known in England, I can see that the necessity of squaring their conclusions according to a fixed set of opinions,
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either blunts that fine sense of honour which would make them maintain truth above all things, or dulls their whole perception of the divine harmony of the universe. The common feeling of the people with regard to the teachings of the clergy may be expressed thus: ‘Oh, of course; they are bound to say so, whether they think it or not. And if they really do believe all they say, why the more fools they.’ Thus a Church with a creed makes a nation of atheists, or dissenters, unless when the people are absolutely unintelligent or credulous. Truly it may be said of England, ‘Because of swearing the land mourneth.’
The people who live there don’t see it. But neither do fish know that the sea is salt, till they taste fresh water. (Is all knowledge by contrast?)
‘Here I am free, as Nature first made man,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran,
Ere the base laws of servitude began:’
servitude of mind as well as of body; and here will I remain so long as I can hope to win an independence. Strange that the feeling of home-sickness should be so strong, when I can so clearly see that to return would be to forfeit the liberty of my whole life. I hope it will pass off as I get stronger.
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THE PRAIRIE
From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal.
I CAN’T help fancying that something preys upon the Major’s mind; something that he broods morbidly over. With all his confidingness and openness of character, he is very reserved about that part of his history that relates to his leaving home. He enjoys telling of his feats in swimming and hunting. How, in a terrible flood, it was ‘such fun’ plunging into the current and catching his poor neighbours’ sheep by their tails, and propelling them ashore. How he used to lie out in swamps whole nights watching for wild fowl, and how he had rescued his cousin from drowning, at the narrow risk of his own life. And he tells all without a particle of boasting, from a mere exuberant relish for everything partaking of danger and excitement. Full of tenderness and consideration for others, he can do nothing for himself. Perfectly careless of his own comfort or health, he flings himself down to sleep on sharp rocks or wet ground, unless I spread something for him. He cannot bear the details of a camp life, such as cooking his food, and will eat nothing unless provided for him, saying he is strong enough to go without food for days. He is just the man who would join a tribe of Indians, and enjoy their wandering life, working tremendously hard in procuring game, and then after roasting it upon the embers and
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tearing it with his teeth, would sleep as hard, until compelled by hunger to the next exertion. I can fancy I see him already such an one, roaming through the forests with his rifle, his black hair hanging long and matted down his shoulders, and as wild, and genial, and guileless as ever was unsophisticated savage, and probably as unable to resist the excessive use of ardent spirits, if they came in his way, as the most impulsive of red-skins. I must not complain of his reserve, for I am much the same. In answer to his wonder at my staying in such a country when I might be in a snug living, I have only told him that I am in no hurry to give up my liberty and settle clown. And he quite agrees with me that it is much better to come for a year’s travel to the vigorous new world of the West, than to go to the worn-out old deserts of the East, as I once thought of doing; and that when I do ‘become a parson, a little Californian gold will not come amiss in the parish, if I can get it.’
One of our fellow-passengers slept at our camp last night on his way to the city for articles of trade with the Indians. We learn from him that Mr. Meade took one look at the mines and ‘made tracks’ for home again. A capital specimen of the subtle ‘downeaster’ is this man. (The same who preferred purchasing to accepting a gift from me on board ship.) Having had experience of the Indians in the States, he tells us he was not afraid to venture alone among them here with some mules laden with such things as they love. Finding them without gold, he sent them off to dig some. ‘In dealing with them,’ he said, ‘I always make a point of carefully weighing their gold, and returning some of it, however little there is, so that they think me the honestest
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white man in California, though I take good care to help myself.’ He is certainly wiser in his generation than a party of Irishmen who, finding the Indians on Bear River had a good deal of gold, caught one and threatened to kill him unless he led them to the place where they found it. Pretending to yield to their threats, he led them away into the hills, till they suddenly found themselves close upon a large body of armed Indians; upon which the Irishmen were glad to put spurs to their horses and gallop away as fast as they could.
Here are the cattle at last. So tomorrow we shall be on the road again. I shall be sorry to leave this spot. It seems like a home. And I have got so much stronger while here, I hope to be able to walk part of the way, and perhaps get a shot at something.
Vernon. A pleasant spot this, at the junction of these two fine streams. The new town consists at present of two tents and a waggon. My strength has returned rapidly in the last week; so that even the Major has hopes of me. The wished-for shot at something the other morning was nearly coming off in a manner anything but desirable. We were woke by a surly grumbling noise down by the water, which proceeded from a bear. The Major wanted to get up and shoot, which, in the dark, would have been madness. ‘But he’s coming towards us,’ said he. ‘Bears don’t care for blankets that I know of. Lie still and cover yourself up,’ I whispered. Presently we heard the beast’s heavy breathing as he came nearer, and walked round and round to inspect us. I felt that the Major was in a tremor of eagerness to make an onslaught, and I was equally anxious lest he should
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move. The bear, as if perplexed, slowly returned to the water, and there held a grumbling colloquy with himself. Weak and exhausted, I fell asleep. In the morning I learnt that the bear had again returned, and walked round and round, fairly mounting guard over us for at least two mortal hours, until warned off by approach of day. The grass close to us – for we lay upon the ground – was all trampled down by his great wet heavy paws, and on commencing our day’s march, we were able to track him along our route, to the edge of a thicket, into which he had evidently turned. We were walking with our guns in advance of the waggon, and on peering into the wood the Major exclaimed, ‘There he is.’ And I could see a black shaggy head apparently crouching behind a bush some seventy yards off. I stepped a little on one side to get a better view, and agreed to reserve my shots until they were wanted in close quarters. The Major was taking a steady aim when I called to him to hold, as it was no bear but an Indian. He lowered his rifle, when the owner of the shaggy head jumped up with a yell and darted away into the wood, so that we saw him no more. When the waggon came up, the driver was actually angry at the Indian’s escape, saying, ‘they ought to be shot down like vermin wherever they are seen. That the two races can never agree, and that now the whites have got the country, and can turn it to account, the sooner it is cleared of them the better.’ This seems to be the feeling of all Western Americans. They regard the Indian but as one of the wild beasts, or wild plants, whose business it is only to occupy the soil until wanted for cultivation. I reminded him that if we had killed this Indian, even though we ourselves might
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escape from his tribe, the next white men who came in their way would undoubtedly pay the penalty for us; and so we should be their murderers. He thought ‘such doctrine might do for the old country, but here it is every man for himself.’ I was talking on one occasion with a trapper and hunter from the Rocky Mountains about rifles, and he said that for small things, such as rabbits and squirrels, he preferred the Kentucky pea rifle; but for buffalos, Indians, and other large game, he wanted something that carried a bigger ball.
The Major has been quite downhearted ever since. He seems to feel, perhaps more seriously than the occasion warrants, his narrow escape from killing a man. Of late he has been very anxious to hear from home, and it is settled that I am to go down to the Bay for letters and sea air, while he amuses himself here fishing. After which we intend to return to the mines for the winter.
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DEATH’S DOOR
From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal.
San Francisco. THERE seems to be a doom on me in this country. And the climate was said to be so healthy. The last fortnight I have been again knocking at death’s door. These bitter cold sea breezes, or rather gales, from the north were too much for me in the weak state in which I arrived here. In one hour I was struck down with acute inflammation. I am on a stretcher in a wooden hotel, my room consisting of one of the small compartments into which the story is divided by canvas partitions.
If the other inmates can hear me as well as I can hear every movement of theirs, what a nuisance I must have been in the house. I remember now seeing the door occasionally opened and a head thrust in, and after an inquisitive look, hastily withdrawn on catching a sight of me. They probably thought me past help, and that a little while would end it. And well they might if my dim recollections of how I have gone on be correct. Though I cannot stand, and this is the first day I have retained a particle of food for – I don’t know how long, – I will ask the doctor when he comes how long I have been ill, – yet I have never thought of dying, – perhaps because I have been too exhausted to think of anything.
September 30th. The doctor has been here. He
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tells me that he has been with me two or three times a day for a fortnight, but that I was often unconscious of his presence, and he did not disturb me.
He is an English physician; l remember now I told them to get me an English doctor if there was one to be found. He came here, he tells me, to go to the mines. But a merchant to whom he had an introduction asked him if he had ‘ever worked as a railway navvy, because if he hadn’t, and didn’t want to begin, he had better stay, and practise his profession in the city. There would be lots of sickness, and all the miners who had any gold would be sure to come there to be doctored.’ So he remained, and is doing capitally. He promises to inquire for my letters and the Major’s.
October 4th. Got my letters yesterday. The doctor has had them in his pocket for a week, but says l was too weak to read them. There are none for the Major. All well at the dear old home, and their letters are full of affection. My letters from Nicaragua took them to a strange part of the world, and they were obliged to consult the atlas. How it would shock them to see me now without being able to help me.
They don’t know yet that I am in California, but they are terribly alarmed at the idea of my coming here. It appears that the papers are full of dreadful accounts of murders and lynchings. I dare say this country does look bad from a distance, and I believe that in the southern mines, where the Mexicans are, things are in a much more disturbed state than where I have been. They remind me that the year is nearly up, and caution me against going so far from home that my money will not hold out to take me back. What will they say when
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they know that I am actually here! and twice almost given up for dead. My poor mother! fortunately I have not told them the worst until it has been over, and I could joke about the wonderful effects of ‘making an effort,’ as Mrs. Chick said Mrs. Dombey ought to do: and how I made a point of recovering because I knew that my mother would never forgive my doing so mean a thing as to go and die in such an uncivilised place.
By the by, I have never had any of those thoughts which I have always been told crowd upon people when face to face with death. I have had neither fear nor curiosity; my consciousness has rather been of unconsciousness – of not thinking at all. I have been quiescent, and impatient only of being disturbed. How easily in this state I might have glided out of life. I may do so yet, for my hold upon it feels very slight. Yet the thought excites no apprehension. Perhaps most people when they die from disease are reduced to that condition that they don’t care about it. So that death is not the evil to them that it seems to one in the full enjoyment of health. It has never occurred to me to fear the future. Why is this? Is it the peculiar triumph of Christianity, or rather of Orthodoxy, to impart to death the sting of terror?
They would call me ungrateful because I express no thankfulness for my preservation. I am glad, because life and health to me mean enjoyment, but ought I to be thankful until I know for what I am preserved? There’s a Socratic sentiment.
5th. Strange property of a bit of paper to be able thus to annihilate time and space and transport me
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thousands of miles. Ever since those letters came I seem to have been bodily at home. How wonderful is the power of the subjective element in man. Who shall say that the ideal is not the more real of the two? At this moment I can distinctly fancy myself there in the old situation and with all my old feelings, and the same longing to escape that I had before I left. I see myself enduring all I before endured; bearing in silence all that shocked me; passing my life in constant self-suppression, scarcely daring to associate with any one, and never dreaming of becoming really attached to any one. Why, what decent girl that I have any chance of meeting there would marry an ‘Infidel’? And, of course, I could not marry without telling her my opinions. Though the term ‘Infidel’ only really means that I have formed views of the divine nature and method which differ considerably from theirs, yet to them it conveys something full of horror. And a poor Infidel too! If I can get tolerably rich, I may find other circles of acquaintance where people think differently. I don’t like those who don’t think at all. I have never heard of any rich men in England objecting to the popular faith. Are all rich men indifferent, or do they suppress their feelings out of deference or fear? Fear! I fancy if I were alone in the world – and had none who would be grieved to the heart by my apostasy, it would be my glory to stand like Paul to denounce the prevailing superstition and idolatry of priests and people.
But what would I give them instead?
Sweep away the clouds and the sun will shine out of itself! Yes, I would at least do something to clear away the solid mass of paganism that still interposes to
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veil from view the God whom they so ignorantly, so degradingly worship. Yes, I too would be an iconoclast, and break to pieces the hideous idol they have set up, and by removing the fetters of bigotry, set humanity free to develop itself to the utmost capacity of its nature.
But I have no mission to break my father’s heart, – or my mother’s.
Would it break them?
They would sorrow intensely and pray without ceasing. And with what result? My mother would feel, though hardly owning it to herself, ‘If the Almighty has a mother’s heart he will consider that perhaps the intention of her erring son is not bad; that he believes himself to be right, poor fellow, but has some strange twist of mind.’ But it would be to her a perpetual suffering.
And my father? –
He would resign himself with a sigh to the inscrutable divine decree that makes a son of his a reprobate, and try to comfort himself with the belief that it is all for the glory of God; and therefore a cause of ultimate rejoicing to everybody, except myself; who by getting my deserts here after for my sinfulness, will glorify God by my torments. Pity they don’t allow the poor damned ones some mitigation of their penalty in consideration of the amount of glory they are the means of contributing to the divine stock. If this be blasphemy, who are the blasphemers?
No, no – I cannot return home. Here where I am free; free to obey the natural laws of my being: here where there are no disguises to pierce through to discover God; where He dwells, not in the accumulated
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conventionalities of ages, but in his own direct workings ever going on in the forest and the prairie, in the mountains and the rivers, in my own unbiased self, and in all the manifestations of his power: here where I can feel myself face to face with Him, and there is no man to come between and obstruct my view: here too where I can with my own hands extract from the earth all that I need for all bodily wants by fear or favour of no man: – here will I remain, a hermit in the desert of nature unredeemed, because needing no redemption, being still primitive and unexhausted; here will I remain, to hope, to work, and to win – or die. Better to do even that, to die outright here, than to return to commit moral and intellectual suicide there.
And they at home, knowing only this of me, shall say, ‘He was no coward or changeling. Having put his hand to the plough, he looked not back. And in our grief at losing him, we are comforted by thinking of his courage and perseverance, and trust to meet in joy hereafter.’
October 6th. The doctor says he is sorry he gave me the letters, as I have considerable fever to-day. I rather think he is right.
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NO SURRENDER
From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal.
THE die is cast. I am on my way up the Sacramento again. I have written home to say that I feel myself entirely unfit for the profession for which I have been brought up: that I hope they will forgive my disappointing their hopes in that respect; and that my prospects in this country are so good that by remaining a few years I may reasonably look forward to being no further expense to them. And that, as for the living, I hope that my younger brother may prove more worthy of it than myself.
l had a curious dream the night after writing home. We were all at breakfast together as usual, and my father was expressing great indignation at a horrible account he had just been reading in the paper about the King of Dahomey sacrificing a thousand human victims to his gods. ‘It would not take much to make him a Christian,’ I observed, ‘for he already believes in a god that requires a sacrifice of agony and blood, before he can receive and pardon his erring children.’
‘Your remark is worthy of an Infidel,’ said my father, ‘and while under my roof, I beg you will make no more of that nature.’
‘But supposing an Infidel to hit upon the truth? Truth is truth wherever it comes from.’
‘Such a perverted notion of truth could only have
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occurred to one who was half an Infidel already. If you are such, the sooner we part the better. It would cut me to the heart to think a child of mine held such opinions, and I could not bear to be constantly reminded of it by seeing him.’
With a persistence unusual to me when at home, and which showed me that it was of my present, and not of my past, self I was dreaming, I replied, ‘but even an Infidel honestly believes his opinions to be true. Supposing I was such, you would be persecuting me for conscience’ sake. Is that a Christian duty?’
The rest of the dream is lost in a confused sense of anger and irritation. But the whole was a singularly natural and vivid realisation of what my position would be if I went home, and served to confirm me in my resolution.
What a magnificent stream is this to me. The Americans are accustomed to such immense rivers that they think little of it. Not three months ago I came up here in a canoe – a week’s voyage under constant torture from the unremitting attentions of the mosquitoes. Now, a single day is sufficient. When I went down in this steamer last month one of the passengers declined paying for his ticket, on the plea that he had no money. They threatened to put him ashore. He said that of course they could do so if they pleased, but he should starve to death, or be devoured alive by mosquitoes in those endless swamps, and he didn’t suppose it was worth murdering a man for ten dollars. He had friends in the city who might advance him the money, if they would wait till he could find them. At last it was determined to search him, when a splendid-looking
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specimen of gold and quartz was found upon him, which was, of course, impounded. The man showed great distress, saying he could not possibly part with that; it belonged to a friend up country, who had entrusted him with it to send home, and he should be in a terrible strait if they took it from him; that he had no idea they would not give a poor fellow a passage or trust him if he was hard up; and so he went on till there was a strong feeling of commiseration excited for him among the passengers. However, the specimen was weighed and valued, and the passage money being deducted, the balance was paid him in cash, amounting to some sixty dollars, he refusing for some time to take it, saying he should be making himself a party to the robbery of his friend. On the arrival of the steamer he went ashore, and was seen no more. I learn now that on testing the specimen it proved to be an artificial composition of brass and quartz, and of course utterly worthless. The cunning Yankee had taken this mode of passing it without risk to himself. He did not offer it – didn’t want them to take it; but they would have it, and forced it from him. Altogether it was an inimitable piece of acting.
Vernon. The Major is terribly disappointed about his letters. In vain I tell him the current stories of post-office mismanagement, and that they may have been taken out by some one of the same name. He lies awake at night groaning and talking to himself about no one caring for him now, and the sooner he is dead the better; and once I caught the words ‘heavy punishment for an accident.’ The sooner I get him to a more active life the better.
(p. 117)
A LETTER HOME
A LETTER to his youngest brother fills up the gap in Herbert’s history for the next six months.
‘As you are a British boy I take it for granted that you long to be a Robinson Crusoe as much as l did at your age. In this country we are all Robinson Crusoes. And I will tell you how I spent my Christmas. The Major (of whom you have already heard) and I were prevented by the bad weather and flooded rivers from reaching the part of the mountains where we wanted to winter. So we stopped at the ford on a stream named Deer Creek, where an English gentleman has a trading post. As we had large supplies with us we joined our stores to his, and while my business was to help him in the disposal of them, the Major looked after some gold-washing operations a few miles off, with a number of hired men. When Christmas-day came I was alone in the camp, with one man. Having discovered the night before that we had nothing to eat except flour and beans, I sent him to the nearest settlement for some fresh meat, and took my gun and looked round near the camp, but could not find even a squirrel. Evening came, but no man or beef. So I sat down somewhat sulkily to a mess of stewed beans, and in due time went to bed. My man came back next day, somewhat ashamed of himself, but the attractions of the settlement had proved too strong for him.
(p. 118)
‘The evenings being too long to admit of sitting up to see the new year in, I determined to see the first sunrise. So about five o’ clock, the moon shining brightly, I took my gun, and wended towards the top of a neighbouring hill where I had before killed deer, and hoped to distinguish the day by feasting on venison.
‘Arrived at the top, I sat down on a great grey rock, whence I could descry on one side the distant valley, with its many streams and sheets of water glistening in the moonlight, and on the other the snowy hill-tops. I waited long and quietly, making short excursions around, but no deer appeared. By-and-by the wind began to howl in the pine-tree tops, and the clouds scoured along the hills, and rain fell, and pitchy darkness hid the very ground from sight. A rustling in the brush, then a step, coming nearer and nearer, then a rush close by me of some heavy animal; I instinctively raised my gun, but all was invisible, and soon the sound had died away in the distance. No use remaining there any longer, and no easy matter to return to the camp. However, I got back at last, after stumbling over fallen trees and sharp rocks, one moment stepping into a ravine of rushing water, and the next entangled in the boughs of a tree, and narrowly copying the evil example of Absalom. There was no sunrise that morning.
‘There are a great many Indians in that part of the country. The way some of them spent Christmas was a very sad one for them. They had been stealing cattle from the white men, and molesting parties of miners, and when some of their number had been shot in return, they took revenge upon a harmless old Baptist minister, shooting him to death with arrows, as he sat working his
(p. 119)
cradle in a lonely ravine. So the day after Christmas-day three parties went out to punish them. One marched before daylight to an Indian village, and shot several Indians, including, I am sorry to say, some women, and burnt their winter stores of acorns and roots. Another party took an Indian prisoner, and led him bound past my tent to the next settlement to be tried. An ugly-looking fellow he was, and quite capable, to judge by his looks, of murdering some dozen white men, as they said he had, the jury listened to what could be said about him, and gave their verdict that “he was one of the meanest Indians round, and ought to be hung anyhow.” So they took him to the top of a hill, and while they put a rope round his neck, an Indian of a tribe friendly to the whites taunted him, but the poor wretch took no notice of him, but looked eagerly round in the distance as if to see if help was near. Seeing none, he met his fate bravely enough.
‘The other party took three prisoners, who confessed, and boasted of their share in the outrages. The first who was hung cried out loudly; the other two were perfectly calm. The rope of one broke before he was quite dead, upon which an old Texan ranger seized it, and putting his foot on the Indian’s body, hauled it tight, saying, “There, you thundering rascal, I guess you won’t shoot another partner of mine.” The bodies, which were buried there, were afterwards dug up by their tribe. The one who had cried out was left on the ground for the wolves, and the other two were taken away to be burnt with all honours.
‘In the midst of all this, however, I felt no alarm, for I always found the Indians grateful for kindness. They
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soon learn to distinguish between the Americans and the English, and to look upon the latter as their friends. You would often have found me without another white man near, surrounded by a crowd of them, and exchanging flour, beads, and blankets, for gold dust. The only beads they care for are the very small white ones, and of blankets red ones. I wished I had more of the beads, for they willingly gave their weight in gold for them. They string them into necklaces and bracelets, and they are at least as valuable to them as diamonds and pearls to the people at home; and when you consider what we have gone through to get those beads there to them, you won’t think them dear at the price. I make a point of never giving spirits to an Indian. One day one of them seeing a black bottle begged for brandy. It happened to be vinegar. I gave him some, hoping it would cure him of wanting brandy. He swallowed it, making many faces, and declared it was “mucho bueno.” But he never asked me for brandy again.
‘One day when I was out hunting, and threading the forest in an absent sort of manner, I came suddenly upon a creature wrinkled, and haggard, and chattering. I at once cocked my gun, thinking that though it might be only the long “missing link,” its ignorance of our relationship might render it dangerous. I had never heard that there are any apes in the country, yet the features were exactly those of one of the baboons in your “Beast book.” On closer inspection, however, it proved to be only an Indian squaw, almost blind with age, and hideous and repulsive-looking in the extreme, just what I believe some poet has described as having “none of the charms of Eve except her nakedness.” Indeed it was
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not until I perceived upon her head the remains of the pitch which is always worn as mourning by the Indians that I was quite sure of her womanity.
‘One day an American came to me and complained that his almanac was wrong. He had wished to influence the Indians as Columbus did once by predicting an eclipse of the moon, and dreadfully small he said he felt when, after making great pretensions to knowledge, and getting the whole tribe out to watch the moon’s disappearance, it went on shining just the same. He quite forgot that he was two thousand miles away from the place where the eclipse was visible.
‘This man considers himself a great astronomer. He was telling me one day of the difference between his native State in the East and the Pacific side, and how much longer the days are here. The latitude being the same, I suggested that that might be because he gets up earlier here.
“‘Oh no,” he said; “it’s because the farther West one goes the longer the days are.” I thought of saying, “How very long, then, they must be when one gets all the way round,” but thought it better to leave him in his happy, contented ignorance.
‘One evening a party of Indians came to my camp and sat down by the fire. Presently they produced a number of field mice, nearly as big as rats, which, without any preparation, they buried in the ashes of my wood fire, and heaped live embers over them. In about half an hour, the Indians, considering them done, took them out, and commenced eating them, skin, bone, cinders, and all, putting them into their mouths head foremost, and munching them gradually up to the tips of
(p. 122)
the tails. I did not continue to watch them closely, but it sounded very like eating walnuts.
‘They procure them by watching, bow in hand, close to their holes; and the instant the mouse puts his head out it is pierced almost to a certainty by an arrow.
‘When the frost came the rivers fell, and we came up here. It was a tremendous journey, but we were anxious to choose a good spot for the summer before the whole country was overrun. In one part of the way the ground was so rotten that we were perpetually digging our mules out. It took nine days to make twelve miles. The last forty miles our road lay over mountain-ridges covered with deep snow. Some considerable streams also had to be crossed. The mode of operation is as follows: – On reaching a river, some commence unloading the mules, while others select the largest pine near the edge, and cut it down so as to fall across the stream. All the baggage is carried over upon the log, and the animals swim across and are reloaded on the other side. On reaching a good spot for camping, all hands go to work unloading, cutting poles for tents and wood for fire, and, if the snow be deep, a tree for the beasts to browse on, making bread and cooking meat. So that in an hour from halting we are all comfortably feeding round a blazing fire. Then the prospects of success are discussed, songs are sung, and stories told, those by the old trappers and backwoodsmen being exceedingly curious and characteristic. These men have an immense deal of quaint humour in them.
‘‘One morning as we were camped by one of the branches of the Yuba, one of the party looking out early saw a herd of deer beside the water. We jumped up
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with our guns and secured five of them. All hands fell to, skinning and cutting them up, with the exception of myself, who preferred the office of making a fire, and rigging a grating of boughs over it for drying the meat in Mexican fashion, so as to preserve it for several weeks.
‘You may think it difficult to camp in deep snow. But knowledge is comfort. In half an hour’s digging a spot is cleared at the foot of some huge pine tree; a few chips are cut from a dry stick and lit at its foot, and presently the rich old tree flares up with such fury that one cannot go near it till the flames subside. What more could be wanted than to be thus comfortably surrounded by a rampart of snow high enough to keep off cold winds.
‘The novelty and freedom of this life make it very delightful, for a time at least. Though occasionally the charm is rudely shaken by such an incident as coming, when hunting, upon the body of some poor murdered miner, stowed away in the bushes, and half-eaten by wolves; murdered perhaps by his own partner when carrying his hard earnings to the home where wife and children are waiting to welcome him who will return to them no more. Every man here may be said to carry his life in his waistcoat pocket. He must take care of it himself. The only law is lynch-law; even that is much better than none. We hear terrible stories of sudden justice inflicted in other parts of the country. Here there is but a scanty population, and all is quiet as yet.
‘I wish you could see me. You would find me dwelling like “truth, at the bottom of a well,” and a very deep one too, for it is necessary to climb some 3000
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feet up an angle of 70° to get out. Our men are at work on a small “bar,” which is only partly uncovered by water. There is no level ground on which we can pitch a tent, so we are perched upon a ledge some thirty feet up the hill-side, to which we ascend by a staircase of rocks, the whole looking very much like a robber’s cave, and somewhat dangerous for somnambulists. Our month’s work here has paid pretty well, but nothing to what we expect when the water falls, and we can turn the river and work in the channel. If ever you or any of your friends want to know if you are well off at home, come to California. Our only shelter is a tent, just big enough to sit or sleep in. If you want provisions you must pack them on your back and trudge over rocks, and hills, and rivers, and snows, for miles. When hungry, wood must be cut, fire made, and food cooked by yourself before you can eat. You get wet through, and must remain so till the weather clears. You want clean clothes, and must wash them yourself in the freezing stream. Climbing up and down the frozen hills you tear your hands with the brush, and almost set yourself on fire with sliding. And if you wish to know what good things potatoes are, you should come here and be glad to get them for twelve shillings a pound.
(p. 125)
A SEVERANCE
April, 1850.
AGAIN the scene changes. The snows are melting under the warm rains of spring. The rivers are far over their banks, and the valley of the Sacramento is one vast sea. Boats, and even steamers, go about the streets of the ill-fated cities of the plain. Here and there is a piece of ground somewhat higher than the rest, to which the flood does not reach. Between the junction of the Yuba and Feather rivers, a considerable space is thus left dry. On the bank of one of these streams is a rancho, or cattle station, belonging to some Spaniards, who intend to start a town there. Many miners have taken refuge here. Having nothing to do but to wait until the waters subside, they pass their time chiefly in drinking, gambling, and fighting. The noise of their revels reaches to a little copse, a mile or more away, beside the now rushing Feather river. A small steeple-shaped tent is pitched there. Its only tenants are two sick men, who have been stopped on their way to the bay by the rapid flooding of the prairies. One of them may be occasionally seen, in the intervals of his ague fits, wandering slowly and feebly along the bank with a rifle, seeking for a rabbit or a bird, which, if he is fortunate enough to obtain it, he takes home and cooks for the other inmate of the little tent. One looking in at such a moment would see the wreck of what had evidently
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been a splendid man, – tall, dark, and strong, but now pale and emaciated; and the other rousing him from his lethargy and gently persuading him to take some food. A few mouthfuls – no more; a look beaming with grateful affection; a vain attempt to articulate; and he sinks back into his stupor he has long since told his story to his friend; there is now no reserve between them, and his mind is at ease. Poor, simple, and yet great-souled Major; blameless in every action of thy life towards others, it was indeed ‘a heavy penalty to pay for an accident;’ and many and bitter will be the tears that flow for thee when Herbert’s next letter reaches its destination at thy distant home. Betrothed to a fair girl, for whom he was indeed a hero, he had but a short time before that appointed for the wedding, taken her young and only brother out to shoot wild-fowl by night. Posting the youth in a favourable position, and giving him strict charge not to move from it, he himself went a little farther round the pool, in order to place the game nearly between them. The lad, eager and volatile, waded in among the reeds to take, as he fancied, a better position, and the startled birds flew close over his head. A hasty shot from the Major, who had little idea he was there, indeed brought down some of them; but a single shot entered the poor boy’s head, and he was taken home a corpse. In her boundless distress, the mother declared she could never again bear the sight of him who had been the innocent cause of her child’s death. To her, indeed, time seemed to bring no alleviation of feeling; but the first shock over, it was felt by others that the misfortune was too heavy in itself, without the added wreck of the happiness of two lives. In
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this feeling the true-hearted girl shared. The more she had loved her brother, the more she felt pity for the unhappy cause of his death. The first time the poor Major had held his head up since the accident was when she forgot her own grief in his, and assured him that their mutual misfortune should only bind them closer together. As a ray from the centre of infinite compassion was this declaration of her sympathy. He had supposed such a thing impossible. Willingly he now acceded to the proposal that he should go abroad for a time, and live in hope.
She promised to write; but no letters ever reached him. Determined not to return until called back by her, for a year and a half he continued to wander and to hope. He then gave way to a settled despondency. At length, he revealed his history to Herbert. A gleam of hope revived in him, as he admitted the probability of the suggestion that the mother had positively forbidden the correspondence, or that letters might easily miss him in his wanderings; or that, as he owned that he had never written to her, she might think he no longer cared for her; or again, that even now there might be letters awaiting him at San Francisco, for he had adopted Herbert’s advice, and written to his relatives, begging for the fullest information, and desiring them to add the name of his native place after his own name in the address, so that none other might receive it in mistake.
‘Let us get this work done,’ said he, ‘and then I will go down myself. We shall have money enough then for the journey home, and something more, too; and you, my boy, will go with me.’
And this, alas, is the end of his hopes! Now is the
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strong man stricken down, and tended in his turn by him whom he had nursed even at death’s door. With blood impoverished, and the whole frame weakened by scurvy, – fatal to how many thousands in that country, – the result of cold and wet, and of scanty nourishment; and in addition to this, with acute inflammation of the chest, the poor Major has too late discovered that the armour of even his constitution is not proof against all assaults. In vain is aid sought from one sojourning at the rancho, and styling himself doctor. ‘It is nothing; a touch of scurvy and a cold. Good food and care only are necessary.’
No use longing to reach the settlements now, more than if they were upon an island in the ocean and had no boat. There they are, and there they must remain until either the dry land reappears, or the soul of at least one of them wings its flight over the waste of waters to regions even more strange than the wilds of California. Yes, to this it must come. The outworks are taken; the inmost citadel of the house of life is mined, and the fortress is no longer tenable. Worst of all signs, the very will to resist lies dormant. So silently and rapidly has the enemy won his way that Herbert’s first serious alarm is also his last one. He returns one day from his wonted hunt for such delicate diet as their corner of the prairie may afford, to find the cold beads of death standing upon the forehead of his friend. Seizing him by the shoulders lie called out loudly to him. The dying man opened his eyes, rose a little from his bed, gleamed once wildly upon him, and grasped his arm as in a vice, and then fell back to rise no more.
Yes; the strong, brave, tender man is dead. Over
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him weeps the sole friend in all that far-off wilderness. He needs a friend now, most when he least knows it; for who else will place him in his last home of rest, where the waters shall not bear him away, or the wild beasts make merry over him. Without is the wind sighing over the rushing waters, and the harsh mirth of the distant revellers; within is silence, and sorrow, and sacred death.
* * * *
‘Oh that I knew what thou knowest now. Thou hast solved the mystery of death. Thou hast thy flight now through realms forbidden to me, and dost read the problem of God and the universe. And thou hast satisfaction therein; for is not deep calm and content written in thy face? and death does not lie. The dead know all things. Why then should I live?’
* * * *
And so intensest curiosity takes the lead of all other feelings as Herbert lies that night beside his dead comrade. Not yet does he comprehend his loneliness, for are they not still together? Nay, as night wears on does he not hear a breathing, a movement? Starting up in eager hope, he reaches out his hand in the darkness and places it upon the Major’s forehead. Cold, cold. The sleep was kinder than the waking, had the dream only lasted.
To dig a grave was beyond Herbert’s strength. Aid must be obtained from the rancho. It must be told to the credit of those reckless Californians, that they never grudge help in this last sad office. Money could procure materials and labour to fashion them into a coffin. All the rest was granted freely. They even come to the burial in a large party, occupying two waggons, some of
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them even nearly sober. And having carried the dead to his resting-place, and replaced the earth amid a certain silence and aspect of wonderment, they remount their waggons, begging Herbert to ‘come and have something to drink.’ Then as fast as their half-broken horses can take them they race back, their shouts and laughter ringing over the prairie, making sad discord to poor Herbert’s mood. Then he remembers for the first time that it is customary to repeat prayers over the dead, in order to constitute what is called ‘Christian burial.’ ‘Prayers: and for whom? For the dead? oh no. For the living? for them? What are prayers to them? For myself? I can grieve without putting my grief into words. And I can wish, without making my wish into prayers. Indeed I know not exactly for what I wish, or for what I should pray. The uppermost feeling is that he should be restored to me. Prayers, then, would be a mockery here, and no mockery shall desecrate the tomb of one so simple and so true.’
* * * *
‘It is impossible not to fancy him still living somewhere, while the image of him lives so clearly in the mind. A few weeks, and the prairies are a vast carpet of beauty. The sea of water chances to a sea of flowers which wave gently in the soft breath of the summer airs that called them forth. Life is change, and death is change. Life and death are one.
* * * *
‘Nature suffers no loss. Her redundancy and infinite resource has no need of us that we should be preserved in our individuality for ever. From the ashes of the dead does she produce the living. From decay, the
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beauty of flowers. From living memories, souls. Men go; man remains. Just as we waste a sheet to try a pen, so nature works. So many men are spoiled in trying – What?
* * * *
‘Can so much excellence perish? Can a soul so noble and true fail to endure for ever? Can God bear to be perpetually losing those whom he loves?’ Alas, does not the beauty of everything fade and depart; the bright hues of the cloud and the aurora; the loveliness of bird and flower; and the noble grandeur of trees?
* * * *
‘Just such a beauty may be human excellence in the Infinite eyes. Its memory may exist when the beautiful thing itself is no more. For what else is individual excellence than a temporary manifestation of eternal goodness? As well may the drops in the rainbow deem each other’s beauty as worthy to endure for ever, as for man to expect immortality for any excellence he can perceive in man. The informing Spirit may indeed be eternal, but forms are ever changing and passing away.’
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: Livro I Seguinte: Livro III