by Robert Reed
ery mind was full of dismay at its effects, a craving for excitement
had led us to peruse De Foe’s account, and the masterly delinea-
tions of the author of Arthur Mervyn . The pictures drawn in these
books were so vivid, that we seemed to have experienced the results
depicted by them . But cold were the sensations excited by words,
burning though they were, and describing the death and misery of
thousands, compared to what I felt in looking on the corpse of this
unhappy stranger . This indeed was the plague . I raised his rigid
limbs, I marked the distortion of his face, and the stony eyes lost
to perception . As I was thus occupied, chill horror congealed my
blood, making my flesh quiver and my hair to stand on end. Half in-
sanely I spoke to the dead . So the plague killed you, I muttered . How
came this? Was the coming painful? You look as if the enemy had
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1064
tortured, before he murdered you . And now I leapt up precipitately,
and escaped from the hut, before nature could revoke her laws, and
inorganic words be breathed in answer from the lips of the departed .
On returning through the lane, I saw at a distance the same as-
semblage of persons which I had left . They hurried away, as soon as
they saw me; my agitated mien added to their fear of coming near
one who had entered within the verge of contagion .
At a distance from facts one draws conclusions which appear
infallible, which yet when put to the test of reality, vanish like un-
real dreams . I had ridiculed the fears of my countrymen, when they
related to others; now that they came home to myself, I paused . The
Rubicon, I felt, was passed; and it behoved me well to reflect what I
should do on this hither side of disease and danger . According to the
vulgar superstition, my dress, my person, the air I breathed, bore in
it mortal danger to myself and others . Should I return to the Castle,
to my wife and children, with this taint upon me? Not surely if I
were infected; but I felt certain that I was not—a few hours would
determine the question—I would spend these in the forest, in reflec-
tion on what was to come, and what my future actions were to be .
In the feeling communicated to me by the sight of one struck by the
plague, I forgot the events that had excited me so strongly in Lon-
don; new and more painful prospects, by degrees were cleared of
the mist which had hitherto veiled them . The question was no longer
whether I should share Adrian’s toils and danger; but in what man-
ner I could, in Windsor and the neighbourhood, imitate the prudence
and zeal which, under his government, produced order and plenty in
London, and how, now pestilence had spread more widely, I could
secure the health of my own family .
I spread the whole earth out as a map before me . On no one spot
of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety. In the
south, the disease, virulent and immedicable, had nearly annihilated
the race of man; storm and inundation, poisonous winds and blights,
filled up the measure of suffering. In the north it was worse—the
lesser population gradually declined, and famine and plague kept
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1065
watch on the survivors, who, helpless and feeble, were ready to fall
an easy prey into their hands .
I contracted my view to England . The overgrown metropolis,
the great heart of mighty Britain, was pulseless . Commerce had
ceased . All resort for ambition or pleasure was cut off—the streets
were grass-grown—the houses empty—the few, that from neces-
sity remained, seemed already branded with the taint of inevitable
pestilence . In the larger manufacturing towns the same tragedy was
acted on a smaller, yet more disastrous scale . There was no Adrian
to superintend and direct, while whole flocks of the poor were struck
and killed . Yet we were not all to die . No truly, though thinned, the
race of man would continue, and the great plague would, in after
years, become matter of history and wonder . Doubtless this visita-
tion was for extent unexampled—more need that we should work
hard to dispute its progress; ere this men have gone out in sport, and
slain their thousands and tens of thousands; but now man had be-
come a creature of price; the life of one of them was of more worth
than the so called treasures of kings . Look at his thought-endued
countenance, his graceful limbs, his majestic brow, his wondrous
mechanism—the type and model of this best work of God is not
to be cast aside as a broken vessel—he shall be preserved, and his
children and his children’s children carry down the name and form
of man to latest time .
Above all I must guard those entrusted by nature and fate to my
especial care . And surely, if among all my fellow-creatures I were
to select those who might stand forth examples of the greatness and
goodness of man, I could choose no other than those allied to me
by the most sacred ties . Some from among the family of man must
survive, and these should be among the survivors; that should be
my task—to accomplish it my own life were a small sacrifice. There
then in that castle—in Windsor Castle, birth-place of Idris and my
babes, should be the haven and retreat for the wrecked bark of hu-
man society . Its forest should be our world—its garden afford us
food; within its walls I would establish the shaken throne of health .
I was an outcast and a vagabond, when Adrian gently threw over
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1066
me the silver net of love and civilization, and linked me inextri-
cably to human charities and human excellence . I was one, who,
though an aspirant after good, and an ardent lover of wisdom, was
yet unenrolled in any list of worth, when Idris, the princely born,
who was herself the personification of all that was divine in woman,
she who walked the earth like a poet’s dream, as a carved goddess
endued with sense, or pictured saint stepping from the canvas—she,
the most worthy, chose me, and gave me herself—a priceless gift .
During several hours I continued thus to meditate, till hunger
and fatigue brought me back to the passing hour, then marked by
long shadows cast from the descending sun . I had wandered towards
Bracknel, far to the west of Windsor . The feeling of perfect health
which I enjoyed, assured me that I was free from contagion . I re-
membered that Idris had been kept in ignorance of my proceedings .
She might have heard of my return from London, and my visit to
Bolter’s Lock, which, connected with my continued absence, might
tend greatly to alarm her . I returned to Windsor by the Long Walk,
and passing through the town towards the Castle, I found it in a state
of agitation and disturbance .
“It is too late to be ambitious,” says Sir Thomas Browne . “We
cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in their
persons; one face of Janus holds no proportion to the other .” Upon
this text many fanatics arose, who prophesied that the end of time
was come . The spirit of superstition had birth, from the wreck of our
hopes, and antics wild and dangerous were played on the great the-
atre, while the remaining particle of futurity dwindled into a point
in the eyes of the prognosticators . Weak-spirited women died of
fear as they listened to their denunciations; men of robust form and
seeming strength fell into idiotcy and madness, racked by the dread
of coming eternity . A man of this kind was now pouring forth his
eloquent despair among the inhabitants of Windsor . The scene of the
morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been spread abroad,
had alarmed the country-people, so they had become fit instruments
to be played upon by a maniac .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1067
The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely infant by
the plague . He was a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to
the occupation which supplied his necessities, famine was added
to his other miseries . He left the chamber which contained his
wife and child—wife and child no more, but “dead earth upon the
earth”—wild with hunger, watching and grief, his diseased fancy
made him believe himself sent by heaven to preach the end of time
to the world . He entered the churches, and foretold to the congrega-
tions their speedy removal to the vaults below . He appeared like the
forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and bade the spectators
go home and die. He had been seized and confined; he had escaped
and wandered from London among the neighbouring towns, and,
with frantic gestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their
hidden fears, and gave voice to the soundless thought they dared not
syllable . He stood under the arcade of the town-hall of Windsor, and
from this elevation harangued a trembling crowd .
“Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth,” he cried, “hear thou, all see-
ing, but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart,
which breathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning!
Death is among us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but
she is our grave! The clouds of heaven weep for us—the pageantry
of the stars is but our funeral torchlight . Grey headed men, ye hoped
for yet a few years in your long-known abode—but the lease is up,
you must remove—children, ye will never reach maturity, even now
the small grave is dug for ye— mothers, clasp them in your arms,
one death embraces you!”
Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast up, seemed
bursting from their sockets, while he appeared to follow shapes, to us
invisible, in the yielding air—“There they are,” he cried, “the dead!
They rise in their shrouds, and pass in silent procession towards
the far land of their doom—their bloodless lips move not—their
shadowy limbs are void of motion, while still they glide onwards .
We come,” he exclaimed, springing forwards, “for what should we
wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselves in the court-dress of
death . Pestilence will usher you to his presence . Why thus long?
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1068
they, the good, the wise, and the beloved, are gone before . Mothers,
kiss you last—husbands, protectors no more, lead on the partners of
your death! Come, O come! while the dear ones are yet in sight, for
soon they will pass away, and we never never shall join them more .”
From such ravings as these, he would suddenly become collected,
and with unexaggerated but terrific words, paint the horrors of the
time; describe with minute detail, the effects of the plague on the
human frame, and tell heart-breaking tales of the snapping of dear
affinities—the gasping horror of despair over the death-bed of the
last beloved—so that groans and even shrieks burst from the crowd .
One man in particular stood in front, his eyes fixt on the prophet,
his mouth open, his limbs rigid, while his face changed to various
colours, yellow, blue, and green, through intense fear . The maniac
caught his glance, and turned his eye on him— one has heard of
the gaze of the rattle-snake, which allures the trembling victim till
he falls within his jaws . The maniac became composed; his person
rose higher; authority beamed from his countenance . He looked on
the peasant, who began to tremble, while he still gazed; his knees
knocked together; his teeth chattered . He at last fell down in convul-
sions . “That man has the plague,” said the maniac calmly . A shriek
burst from the lips of the poor wretch; and then sudden motionless-
ness came over him; it was manifest to all that he was dead .
Cries of horror filled the place—every one endeavoured to effect
his escape—in a few minutes the market place was cleared—the
corpse lay on the ground; and the maniac, subdued and exhausted,
sat beside it, leaning his gaunt cheek upon his thin hand . Soon some
people, deputed by the magistrates, came to remove the body; the
unfortunate being saw a jailor in each—he fled precipitately, while I
passed onwards to the Castle .
Death, cruel and relentless, had entered these beloved walls . An
old servant, who had nursed Idris in infancy, and who lived with
us more on the footing of a revered relative than a domestic, had
gone a few days before to visit a daughter, married, and settled in
the neighbourhood of London . On the night of her return she sick-
ened of the plague . From the haughty and unbending nature of the
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1069
Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender filial associations with
her . This good woman had stood in the place of a mother, and her
very deficiencies of education and knowledge, by rendering her
humble and defenceless, endeared her to us—she was the especial
favourite of the children . I found my poor girl, there is no exaggera-
tion in the expression, wild with grief and dread . She hung over the
patient in agony, which was not mitigated when her thoughts wan-
dered towards her babes, for whom she feared infection . My arrival
was like the newly discovered lamp of a lighthouse to sailors, who
are weathering some dangerous point . She deposited her appalling
doubts in my hands; she relied on my judgment, and was comforted
by my participation in her sorrow . Soon our poor nurse expired; and
the anguish of suspense was changed to deep regret, which though at
first more painful, yet yielded with greater readiness to my consola-
tions . Sleep, the sovereign balm, at length steeped her tearful eyes
in forgetfulness .
She slept; and quiet prevailed in the Castle, whose inhabitants
were hushed to repose . I was awake, and during the long hours of
dead night, my busy thoughts worked in my brain, like ten thousand
mill-wheels, rapid, acute, untameable . All slept—all England slept;
and from my window, commanding a wide prospect of the star-
illumined country, I saw the land stretched out in placid rest . I was
awake, al
ive, while the brother of death possessed my race . What,
if the more potent of these fraternal deities should obtain dominion
over it? The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though apparently a
paradox, rung in my ears . The solitude became intolerable—I placed
my hand on the beating heart of Idris, I bent my head to catch the
sound of her breath, to assure myself that she still existed—for a
moment I doubted whether I should not awake her; so effeminate
an horror ran through my frame .—Great God! would it one day
be thus? One day all extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth
alone? Were these warning voices, whose inarticulate and oracular
sense forced belief upon me?
Yet I would not call them
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1070
Voices of warning, that announce to us
Only the inevitable. As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere—so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in today already walks tomorrow.9
CHAPTER VIII.
After a long interval, I am again impelled by the restless spirit
within me to continue my narration; but I must alter the mode which
I have hitherto adopted . The details contained in the foregoing
pages, apparently trivial, yet each slightest one weighing like lead
in the depressed scale of human afflictions; this tedious dwelling
on the sorrows of others, while my own were only in apprehension;
this slowly laying bare of my soul’s wounds: this journal of death;
this long drawn and tortuous path, leading to the ocean of countless
tears, awakens me again to keen grief . I had used this history as an
opiate; while it described my beloved friends, fresh with life and
glowing with hope, active assistants on the scene, I was soothed;
there will be a more melancholy pleasure in painting the end of all .
But the intermediate steps, the climbing the wall, raised up between
what was and is, while I still looked back nor saw the concealed
desert beyond, is a labour past my strength . Time and experience
have placed me on an height from which I can comprehend the past
as a whole; and in this way I must describe it, bringing forward
the leading incidents, and disposing light and shade so as to form a
picture in whose very darkness there will be harmony .