by Robert Reed
in the harbour were flung on land like seaweed, and there battered
to pieces by the breakers . The waves dashed against the cliff, which
if in any place it had been before loosened, now gave way, and the
affrighted crowd saw vast fragments of the near earth fall with crash
and roar into the deep . This sight operated differently on different
persons . The greater part thought it a judgment of God, to prevent
or punish our emigration from our native land . Many were doubly
eager to quit a nook of ground now become their prison, which ap-
peared unable to resist the inroads of ocean’s giant waves .
When we arrived at Dover, after a fatiguing day’s journey, we all
required rest and sleep; but the scene acting around us soon drove
away such ideas . We were drawn, along with the greater part of our
companions, to the edge of the cliff, there to listen to and make a
thousand conjectures . A fog narrowed our horizon to about a quarter
of a mile, and the misty veil, cold and dense, enveloped sky and
sea in equal obscurity . What added to our inquietude was the cir-
cumstance that two-thirds of our original number were now waiting
for us in Paris, and clinging, as we now did most painfully, to any
addition to our melancholy remnant, this division, with the tameless
impassable ocean between, struck us with affright . At length, after
loitering for several hours on the cliff, we retired to Dover Castle,
whose roof sheltered all who breathed the English air, and sought the
sleep necessary to restore strength and courage to our worn frames
and languid spirits .
Early in the morning Adrian brought me the welcome intelli-
gence that the wind had changed: it had been south-west; it was now
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1171
north-east . The sky was stripped bare of clouds by the increasing
gale, while the tide at its ebb seceded entirely from the town . The
change of wind rather increased the fury of the sea, but it altered
its late dusky hue to a bright green; and in spite of its unmitigated
clamour, its more cheerful appearance instilled hope and pleasure .
All day we watched the ranging of the mountainous waves, and to-
wards sunset a desire to decypher the promise for the morrow at its
setting, made us all gather with one accord on the edge of the cliff .
When the mighty luminary approached within a few degrees of the
tempest-tossed horizon, suddenly, a wonder! three other suns, alike
burning and brilliant, rushed from various quarters of the heavens
towards the great orb; they whirled round it . The glare of light was
intense to our dazzled eyes; the sun itself seemed to join in the dance,
while the sea burned like a furnace, like all Vesuvius a-light, with
flowing lava beneath. The horses broke loose from their stalls in
terror—a herd of cattle, panic struck, raced down to the brink of the
cliff, and blinded by light, plunged down with frightful yells in the
waves below . The time occupied by the apparition of these meteors
was comparatively short; suddenly the three mock suns united in
one, and plunged into the sea . A few seconds afterwards, a deafen-
ing watery sound came up with awful peal from the spot where they
had disappeared .
Meanwhile the sun, disencumbered from his strange satellites,
paced with its accustomed majesty towards its western home .
When—we dared not trust our eyes late dazzled, but it seemed
that—the sea rose to meet it—it mounted higher and higher, till the
fiery globe was obscured, and the wall of water still ascended the
horizon; it appeared as if suddenly the motion of earth was revealed
to us—as if no longer we were ruled by ancient laws, but were turned
adrift in an unknown region of space . Many cried aloud, that these
were no meteors, but globes of burning matter, which had set fire to
the earth, and caused the vast cauldron at our feet to bubble up with
its measureless waves; the day of judgment was come they averred,
and a few moments would transport us before the awful counte-
nance of the omnipotent judge; while those less given to visionary
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1172
terrors, declared that two conflicting gales had occasioned the last
phaenomenon . In support of this opinion they pointed out the fact
that the east wind died away, while the rushing of the coming west
mingled its wild howl with the roar of the advancing waters . Would
the cliff resist this new battery? Was not the giant wave far higher
than the precipice? Would not our little island be deluged by its ap-
proach? The crowd of spectators fled. They were dispersed over the
fields, stopping now and then, and looking back in terror. A sublime
sense of awe calmed the swift pulsations of my heart—I awaited the
approach of the destruction menaced, with that solemn resignation
which an unavoidable necessity instils . The ocean every moment
assumed a more terrific aspect, while the twilight was dimmed by
the rack which the west wind spread over the sky . By slow degrees
however, as the wave advanced, it took a more mild appearance;
some under current of air, or obstruction in the bed of the waters,
checked its progress, and it sank gradually; while the surface of the
sea became uniformly higher as it dissolved into it . This change took
from us the fear of an immediate catastrophe, although we were still
anxious as to the final result. We continued during the whole night to
watch the fury of the sea and the pace of the driving clouds, through
whose openings the rare stars rushed impetuously; the thunder of
conflicting elements deprived us of all power to sleep.
This endured ceaselessly for three days and nights . The stout-
est hearts quailed before the savage enmity of nature; provisions
began to fail us, though every day foraging parties were dispersed to
the nearer towns . In vain we schooled ourselves into the belief, that
there was nothing out of the common order of nature in the strife
we witnessed; our disasterous and overwhelming destiny turned the
best of us to cowards . Death had hunted us through the course of
many months, even to the narrow strip of time on which we now
stood; narrow indeed, and buffeted by storms, was our footway
overhanging the great sea of calamity—
As an unsheltered northern shore
Is shaken by the wintry wave—
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1173
And frequent storms for evermore,
(While from the west the loud winds rave,
Or from the east, or mountains hoar)
The struck and tott’ring sand-bank lave.21
It required more than human energy to bear up against the men-
aces of destruction that every where surrounded us .
After the lapse of three days, the gale died away, the sea-gull
sailed upon the calm bosom of the windless atmosphere, and the last
yellow leaf on the topmost branch of the oak hung without motion .
The sea no longer broke with fury; but a swell setting in steadily
for shore, with long sweep and sullen burst replaced the roar of
the breakers . Yet we derived hope from the change, and we did not
doubt that after the interval of a few days the sea would resume its
tranquillity . The sunset of the fourth day favoured this idea; it was
clear and golden . As we gazed on the purple sea, radiant beneath,
we were attracted by a novel spectacle; a dark speck—as it neared,
visibly a boat—rode on the top of the waves, every now and then
lost in the steep vallies between . We marked its course with eager
questionings; and, when we saw that it evidently made for shore,
we descended to the only practicable landing place, and hoisted a
signal to direct them . By the help of glasses we distinguished her
crew; it consisted of nine men, Englishmen, belonging in truth to the
two divisions of our people, who had preceded us, and had been for
several weeks at Paris . As countryman was wont to meet country-
man in distant lands, did we greet our visitors on their landing, with
outstretched hands and gladsome welcome . They were slow to re-
ciprocate our gratulations . They looked angry and resentful; not less
than the chafed sea which they had traversed with imminent peril,
though apparently more displeased with each other than with us . It
was strange to see these human beings, who appeared to be given
forth by the earth like rare and inestimable plants, full of towering
passion, and the spirit of angry contest. Their first demand was to be
conducted to the Lord Protector of England, so they called Adrian,
21
Chorus in Oedipus Coloneus .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1174
though he had long discarded the empty title, as a bitter mockery of
the shadow to which the Protectorship was now reduced . They were
speedily led to Dover Castle, from whose keep Adrian had watched
the movements of the boat . He received them with the interest and
wonder so strange a visitation created . In the confusion occasioned
by their angry demands for precedence, it was long before we could
discover the secret meaning of this strange scene . By degrees, from
the furious declamations of one, the fierce interruptions of another,
and the bitter scoffs of a third, we found that they were deputies
from our colony at Paris, from three parties there formed, who, each
with angry rivalry, tried to attain a superiority over the other two .
These deputies had been dispatched by them to Adrian, who had
been selected arbiter; and they had journied from Paris to Calais,
through the vacant towns and desolate country, indulging the while
violent hatred against each other; and now they pleaded their several
causes with unmitigated party-spirit .
By examining the deputies apart, and after much investigation,
we learnt the true state of things at Paris . Since parliament had
elected him Ryland’s deputy, all the surviving English had submit-
ted to Adrian . He was our captain to lead us from our native soil to
unknown lands, our lawgiver and our preserver. On the first arrange-
ment of our scheme of emigration, no continued separation of our
members was contemplated, and the command of the whole body
in gradual ascent of power had its apex in the Earl of Windsor . But
unforeseen circumstances changed our plans for us, and occasioned
the greater part of our numbers to be divided for the space of nearly
two months, from the supreme chief . They had gone over in two dis-
tinct bodies; and on their arrival at Paris dissension arose between
them .
They had found Paris a desert. When first the plague had ap-
peared, the return of travellers and merchants, and communications
by letter, informed us regularly of the ravages made by disease on
the continent . But with the encreased mortality this intercourse
declined and ceased . Even in England itself communication from
one part of the island to the other became slow and rare . No vessel
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1175
stemmed the flood that divided Calais from Dover; or if some mel-
ancholy voyager, wishing to assure himself of the life or death of his
relatives, put from the French shore to return among us, often the
greedy ocean swallowed his little craft, or after a day or two he was
infected by the disorder, and died before he could tell the tale of the
desolation of France . We were therefore to a great degree ignorant
of the state of things on the continent, and were not without some
vague hope of finding numerous companions in its wide track. But
the same causes that had so fearfully diminished the English nation
had had even greater scope for mischief in the sister land . France
was a blank; during the long line of road from Calais to Paris not
one human being was found . In Paris there were a few, perhaps a
hundred, who, resigned to their coming fate, flitted about the streets
of the capital and assembled to converse of past times, with that
vivacity and even gaiety that seldom deserts the individuals of this
nation .
The English took uncontested possession of Paris . Its high houses
and narrow streets were lifeless. A few pale figures were to be dis-
tinguished at the accustomed resort at the Tuileries; they wondered
wherefore the islanders should approach their ill-fated city—for in
the excess of wretchedness, the sufferers always imagine, that their
part of the calamity is the bitterest, as, when enduring intense pain,
we would exchange the particular torture we writhe under, for any
other which should visit a different part of the frame . They listened
to the account the emigrants gave of their motives for leaving their
native land, with a shrug almost of disdain—“Return,” they said,
“return to your island, whose sea breezes, and division from the
continent gives some promise of health; if Pestilence among you
has slain its hundreds, with us it has slain its thousands . Are you
not even now more numerous than we are?—A year ago you would
have found only the sick burying the dead; now we are happier; for
the pang of struggle has passed away, and the few you find here are
patiently waiting the final blow. But you, who are not content to die,
breathe no longer the air of France, or soon you will only be a part
of her soil .”
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1176
Thus, by menaces of the sword, they would have driven back
those who had escaped from fire. But the peril left behind was
deemed imminent by my countrymen; that before them doubtful and
distant; and soon other feelings arose to obliterate fear, or to replace
it by passions, that ought to have had no place among a brotherhood
of unhappy survivors of the expiring world .
The more numerous division of emigrants, which arrived first at
Paris, assumed a superiority of rank and power; the second party
asserted their independence . A third was formed by a sectarian, a
self-erected prophet, who, while he attributed all power and rule to
God, strove to get the real command of his comrades into his own
hands . This third division consisted of fewest individuals, but their
purpose was more one, their obedience to their leader more entire,
their fortitude and courage more unyielding and active .
During the whole progress of the plague, the teachers of religion
were in possession of great power; a power of good, if rightly direct-
ed, or of incalculable mischief, if fanaticism or intolerance guided
their efforts . In the present instance, a worse feeling than either of
these actuated the leader . He was an impostor in the most deter-
mined sense of the term . A man who had in early life lost, through
the indulgence of vicious propensities, all sense of rectitude or self-
esteem; and who, when ambition was awakened in him, gave him-
self up to its influence unbridled by any scruple. His father had been
a methodist preacher, an enthusiastic man with simple intentions;
but whose pernicious doctrines of election and special grace had
contributed to destroy all conscientious feeling in his son . During
the progress of the pestilence he had entered upon various schemes,
by which to acquire adherents and power . Adrian had discovered
and defeated these attempts; but Adrian was absent; the wolf as-
sumed the shepherd’s garb, and the flock admitted the deception: he
had formed a party during the few weeks he had been in Paris, who
zealously propagated the creed of his divine mission, and believed
that safety and salvation were to be afforded only to those who put
their trust in him .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1177
When once the spirit of dissension had arisen, the most frivolous
causes gave it activity. The first party, on arriving at Paris, had taken
possession of the Tuileries; chance and friendly feeling had induced
the second to lodge near to them . A contest arose concerning the
distribution of the pillage; the chiefs of the first division demanded
that the whole should be placed at their disposal; with this assump-
tion the opposite party refused to comply . When next the latter went
to forage, the gates of Paris were shut on them . After overcoming
this difficulty, they marched in a body to the Tuileries. They found
that their enemies had been already expelled thence by the Elect, as
the fanatical party designated themselves, who refused to admit any
into the palace who did not first abjure obedience to all except God,
and his delegate on earth, their chief . Such was the beginning of