The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  vast fields of sky, received the golden colour of his parting beams;

  the distant uplands shone out, and the busy hum of evening came,

  harmonized by distance, on our ear . Adrian, who felt all the fresh

  spirit infused by returning health, clasped his hands in delight, and

  exclaimed with transport:

  “O happy earth, and happy inhabitants of earth! A stately palace

  has God built for you, O man! and worthy are you of your dwelling!

  Behold the verdant carpet spread at our feet, and the azure canopy

  above; the fields of earth which generate and nurture all things, and

  the track of heaven, which contains and clasps all things . Now, at

  this evening hour, at the period of repose and refection, methinks

  all hearts breathe one hymn of love and thanksgiving, and we, like

  priests of old on the mountain-tops, give a voice to their sentiment .

  “Assuredly a most benignant power built up the majestic fab-

  ric we inhabit, and framed the laws by which it endures . If mere

  existence, and not happiness, had been the final end of our being,

  what need of the profuse luxuries which we enjoy? Why should

  our dwelling place be so lovely, and why should the instincts of

  nature minister pleasurable sensations? The very sustaining of our

  animal machine is made delightful; and our sustenance, the fruits

  of the field, is painted with transcendant hues, endued with grateful

  odours, and palatable to our taste . Why should this be, if HE were

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  not good? We need houses to protect us from the seasons, and be-

  hold the materials with which we are provided; the growth of trees

  with their adornment of leaves; while rocks of stone piled above the

  plains variegate the prospect with their pleasant irregularity .

  “Nor are outward objects alone the receptacles of the Spirit of

  Good . Look into the mind of man, where wisdom reigns enthroned;

  where imagination, the painter, sits, with his pencil dipt in hues love-

  lier than those of sunset, adorning familiar life with glowing tints .

  What a noble boon, worthy the giver, is the imagination! it takes

  from reality its leaden hue: it envelopes all thought and sensation in

  a radiant veil, and with an hand of beauty beckons us from the sterile

  seas of life, to her gardens, and bowers, and glades of bliss . And is

  not love a gift of the divinity? Love, and her child, Hope, which can

  bestow wealth on poverty, strength on the weak, and happiness on

  the sorrowing .

  “My lot has not been fortunate . I have consorted long with grief,

  entered the gloomy labyrinth of madness, and emerged, but half

  alive . Yet I thank God that I have lived! I thank God, that I have

  beheld his throne, the heavens, and earth, his footstool . I am glad

  that I have seen the changes of his day; to behold the sun, fountain

  of light, and the gentle pilgrim moon; to have seen the fire bearing

  flowers of the sky, and the flowery stars of earth; to have witnessed

  the sowing and the harvest . I am glad that I have loved, and have

  experienced sympathetic joy and sorrow with my fellow-creatures .

  I am glad now to feel the current of thought flow through my mind,

  as the blood through the articulations of my frame; mere existence

  is pleasure; and I thank God that I live!

  “And all ye happy nurslings of mother-earth, do ye not echo my

  words? Ye who are linked by the affectionate ties of nature, compan-

  ions, friends, lovers! fathers, who toil with joy for their offspring;

  women, who while gazing on the living forms of their children, for-

  get the pains of maternity; children, who neither toil nor spin, but

  love and are loved!

  “Oh, that death and sickness were banished from our earthly

  home! that hatred, tyranny, and fear could no longer make their lair

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  in the human heart! that each man might find a brother in his fellow,

  and a nest of repose amid the wide plains of his inheritance! that

  the source of tears were dry, and that lips might no longer form

  expressions of sorrow. Sleeping thus under the beneficent eye of

  heaven, can evil visit thee, O Earth, or grief cradle to their graves thy

  luckless children? Whisper it not, let the demons hear and rejoice!

  The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a

  paradise . For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of

  death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of

  agony . And what is each human being worth, if he do not put forth

  his strength to aid his fellow-creatures? My soul is a fading spark,

  my nature frail as a spent wave; but I dedicate all of intellect and

  strength that remains to me, to that one work, and take upon me the

  task, as far as I am able, of bestowing blessings on my fellow-men!”

  His voice trembled, his eyes were cast up, his hands clasped, and

  his fragile person was bent, as it were, with excess of emotion . The

  spirit of life seemed to linger in his form, as a dying flame on an altar

  flickers on the embers of an accepted sacrifice.

  CHAPTER V.

  WHEN we arrived at Windsor, I found that Raymond and Perdita

  had departed for the continent . I took possession of my sister’s cot-

  tage, and blessed myself that I lived within view of Windsor Castle .

  It was a curious fact, that at this period, when by the marriage of

  Perdita I was allied to one of the richest individuals in England, and

  was bound by the most intimate friendship to its chiefest noble, I ex-

  perienced the greatest excess of poverty that I had ever known . My

  knowledge of the worldly principles of Lord Raymond, would have

  ever prevented me from applying to him, however deep my distress

  might have been . It was in vain that I repeated to myself with regard

  to Adrian, that his purse was open to me; that one in soul, as we

  were, our fortunes ought also to be common . I could never, while

  with him, think of his bounty as a remedy to my poverty; and I even

  put aside hastily his offers of supplies, assuring him of a falsehood,

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  that I needed them not . How could I say to this generous being,

  “Maintain me in idleness . You who have dedicated your powers of

  mind and fortune to the benefit of your species, shall you so misdi-

  rect your exertions, as to support in uselessness the strong, healthy,

  and capable?”

  And yet I dared not request him to use his influence that I might

  obtain an honourable provision for myself—for then I should have

  been obliged to leave Windsor . I hovered for ever around the walls

  of its Castle, beneath its enshadowing thickets; my sole companions

  were my books and my loving thoughts . I studied the wisdom of the

  ancients, and gazed on the happy walls that sheltered the beloved of

  my soul . My mind was nevertheless idle . I pored over the poetry of

  old times; I studied the metaphysics of Plato and Berkeley . I read the

  histories of Greece and Rome, and of England’s former periods, and

  I watched the movements of the lady of my heart . At night I could
<
br />   see her shadow on the walls of her apartment; by day I viewed her in

  her flower-garden, or riding in the park with her usual companions.

  Methought the charm would be broken if I were seen, but I heard the

  music of her voice and was happy . I gave to each heroine of whom

  I read, her beauty and matchless excellences—such was Antigone,

  when she guided the blind Oedipus to the grove of the Eumenides,

  and discharged the funeral rites of Polynices; such was Miranda in

  the unvisited cave of Prospero; such Haidee, on the sands of the

  Ionian island . I was mad with excess of passionate devotion; but

  pride, tameless as fire, invested my nature, and prevented me from

  betraying myself by word or look .

  In the mean time, while I thus pampered myself with rich mental

  repasts, a peasant would have disdained my scanty fare, which I

  sometimes robbed from the squirrels of the forest . I was, I own, of-

  ten tempted to recur to the lawless feats of my boy-hood, and knock

  down the almost tame pheasants that perched upon the trees, and

  bent their bright eyes on me . But they were the property of Adrian,

  the nurslings of Idris; and so, although my imagination rendered

  sensual by privation, made me think that they would better become

  the spit in my kitchen, than the green leaves of the forest,

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  Nathelesse, I checked my haughty will,

  and did not eat;

  but supped upon sentiment, and dreamt vainly of “such morsels

  sweet,” as I might not waking attain .

  But, at this period, the whole scheme of my existence was about

  to change . The orphan and neglected son of Verney, was on the eve

  of being linked to the mechanism of society by a golden chain, and

  to enter into all the duties and affections of life . Miracles were to

  be wrought in my favour, the machine of social life pushed with

  vast effort backward . Attend, O reader! while I narrate this tale of

  wonders!

  One day as Adrian and Idris were riding through the forest, with

  their mother and accustomed companions, Idris, drawing her brother

  aside from the rest of the cavalcade, suddenly asked him, “What had

  become of his friend, Lionel Verney?”

  “Even from this spot,” replied Adrian, pointing to my sister’s cot-

  tage, “you can see his dwelling .”

  “Indeed!” said Idris, “and why, if he be so near, does he not come

  to see us, and make one of our society?”

  “I often visit him,” replied Adrian; “but you may easily guess the

  motives, which prevent him from coming where his presence may

  annoy any one among us .”

  “I do guess them,” said Idris, “and such as they are, I would not

  venture to combat them . Tell me, however, in what way he passes

  his time; what he is doing and thinking in his cottage retreat?”

  “Nay, my sweet sister,” replied Adrian, “you ask me more than I

  can well answer; but if you feel interest in him, why not visit him?

  He will feel highly honoured, and thus you may repay a part of the

  obligation I owe him, and compensate for the injuries fortune has

  done him .”

  “I will most readily accompany you to his abode,” said the lady,

  “not that I wish that either of us should unburthen ourselves of our

  debt, which, being no less than your life, must remain unpayable

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  ever . But let us go; tomorrow we will arrange to ride out together,

  and proceeding towards that part of the forest, call upon him .”

  The next evening therefore, though the autumnal change had

  brought on cold and rain, Adrian and Idris entered my cottage . They

  found me Curius-like, feasting on sorry fruits for supper; but they

  brought gifts richer than the golden bribes of the Sabines, nor could

  I refuse the invaluable store of friendship and delight which they

  bestowed . Surely the glorious twins of Latona were not more wel-

  come, when, in the infancy of the world, they were brought forth

  to beautify and enlighten this “sterile promontory,” than were this

  angelic pair to my lowly dwelling and grateful heart . We sat like one

  family round my hearth . Our talk was on subjects, unconnected with

  the emotions that evidently occupied each; but we each divined the

  other’s thought, and as our voices spoke of indifferent matters, our

  eyes, in mute language, told a thousand things no tongue could have

  uttered .

  They left me in an hour’s time . They left me happy—how un-

  speakably happy . It did not require the measured sounds of human

  language to syllable the story of my extasy . Idris had visited me;

  Idris I should again and again see—my imagination did not wander

  beyond the completeness of this knowledge . I trod air; no doubt, no

  fear, no hope even, disturbed me; I clasped with my soul the fulness

  of contentment, satisfied, undesiring, beatified.

  For many days Adrian and Idris continued to visit me thus . In

  this dear intercourse, love, in the guise of enthusiastic friendship,

  infused more and more of his omnipotent spirit . Idris felt it . Yes,

  divinity of the world, I read your characters in her looks and ges-

  ture; I heard your melodious voice echoed by her—you prepared

  for us a soft and flowery path, all gentle thoughts adorned it—your

  name, O Love, was not spoken, but you stood the Genius of the

  Hour, veiled, and time, but no mortal hand, might raise the curtain .

  Organs of articulate sound did not proclaim the union of our hearts;

  for untoward circumstance allowed no opportunity for the expres-

  sion that hovered on our lips . Oh my pen! haste thou to write what

  was, before the thought of what is, arrests the hand that guides thee .

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  If I lift up my eyes and see the desart earth, and feel that those dear

  eyes have spent their mortal lustre, and that those beauteous lips are

  silent, their “crimson leaves” faded, for ever I am mute!

  But you live, my Idris, even now you move before me! There was

  a glade, O reader! a grassy opening in the wood; the retiring trees left

  its velvet expanse as a temple for love; the silver Thames bounded

  it on one side, and a willow bending down dipt in the water its Na-

  iad hair, dishevelled by the wind’s viewless hand . The oaks around

  were the home of a tribe of nightingales—there am I now; Idris, in

  youth’s dear prime, is by my side —remember, I am just twenty-

  two, and seventeen summers have scarcely passed over the beloved

  of my heart . The river swollen by autumnal rains, deluged the low

  lands, and Adrian in his favourite boat is employed in the dangerous

  pastime of plucking the topmost bough from a submerged oak . Are

  you weary of life, O Adrian, that you thus play with danger?—

  He has obtained his prize, and he pilots his boat through the

  flood; our eyes were fixed on him fearfully, but the stream carried

  him away from us; he was forced to land far lower down, and to

  make a considerable circuit before he could join us . “He is safe!”

  said Idris, as he leapt on
shore, and waved the bough over his head

  in token of success; “we will wait for him here .”

  We were alone together; the sun had set; the song of the night-

  ingales began; the evening star shone distinct in the flood of light,

  which was yet unfaded in the west . The blue eyes of my angelic girl

  were fixed on this sweet emblem of herself: “How the light palpi-

  tates,” she said, “which is that star’s life . Its vacillating effulgence

  seems to say that its state, even like ours upon earth, is wavering and

  inconstant; it fears, methinks, and it loves .”

  “Gaze not on the star, dear, generous friend,” I cried, “read not

  love in its trembling rays; look not upon distant worlds; speak not

  of the mere imagination of a sentiment . I have long been silent; long

  even to sickness have I desired to speak to you, and submit my soul,

  my life, my entire being to you . Look not on the star, dear love, or

  do, and let that eternal spark plead for me; let it be my witness and

  my advocate, silent as it shines—love is to me as light to the star;

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  even so long as that is uneclipsed by annihilation, so long shall I

  love you .”

  Veiled for ever to the world’s callous eye must be the transport of

  that moment . Still do I feel her graceful form press against my full-

  fraught heart—still does sight, and pulse, and breath sicken and fail,

  at the remembrance of that first kiss. Slowly and silently we went to

  meet Adrian, whom we heard approaching .

  I entreated Adrian to return to me after he had conducted his sis-

  ter home . And that same evening, walking among the moon-lit for-

  est paths, I poured forth my whole heart, its transport and its hope,

  to my friend . For a moment he looked disturbed—“I might have

  foreseen this,” he said, “what strife will now ensue! Pardon me,

  Lionel, nor wonder that the expectation of contest with my mother

  should jar me, when else I should delightedly confess that my best

  hopes are fulfilled, in confiding my sister to your protection. If you

  do not already know it, you will soon learn the deep hate my mother

  bears to the name Verney . I will converse with Idris; then all that a

  friend can do, I will do; to her it must belong to play the lover’s part,

  if she be capable of it .”