by Robert Reed
ground—because wild natural scenery reminded me less acutely of
my hopeless state of loneliness . I counted the days, and bore with
me a peeled willow-wand, on which, as well as I could remember,
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1255
I had notched the days that had elapsed since my wreck, and each
night I added another unit to the melancholy sum .
I had toiled up a hill which led to Spoleto . Around was spread a
plain, encircled by the chestnut-covered Appennines . A dark ravine
was on one side, spanned by an aqueduct, whose tall arches were
rooted in the dell below, and attested that man had once deigned
to bestow labour and thought here, to adorn and civilize nature .
Savage, ungrateful nature, which in wild sport defaced his remains,
protruding her easily renewed, and fragile growth of wild flowers
and parasite plants around his eternal edifices. I sat on a fragment
of rock, and looked round . The sun had bathed in gold the western
atmosphere, and in the east the clouds caught the radiance, and bud-
ded into transient loveliness . It set on a world that contained me
alone for its inhabitant . I took out my wand—I counted the marks .
Twenty-five were already traced—twenty-five days had already
elapsed, since human voice had gladdened my ears, or human coun-
tenance met my gaze. Twenty-five long, weary days, succeeded by
dark and lonesome nights, had mingled with foregone years, and
had become a part of the past—the never to be recalled—a real,
undeniable portion of my life—twenty-five long, long days.
Why this was not a month!—Why talk of days—or weeks—or
months—I must grasp years in my imagination, if I would truly
picture the future to myself—three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anni-
versaries of that fatal epoch might elapse—every year containing
twelve months, each of more numerous calculation in a diary, than
the twenty-five days gone by—Can it be? Will it be?—We had been
used to look forward to death tremulously— wherefore, but because
its place was obscure? But more terrible, and far more obscure, was
the unveiled course of my lone futurity . I broke my wand; I threw it
from me . I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growth
of my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than
those ruled over by the planets—and, in looking back on the age that
had elapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of
days and hours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned
it out .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1256
I hid my face in my hands . The twitter of the young birds go-
ing to rest, and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still
evening-air—the crickets chirped—the aziolo cooed at intervals .
My thoughts had been of death—these sounds spoke to me of life . I
lifted up my eyes—a bat wheeled round—the sun had sunk behind
the jagged line of mountains, and the paly, crescent moon was vis-
ible, silver white, amidst the orange sunset, and accompanied by
one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight . A herd of cattle passed
along in the dell below, untended, towards their watering place—the
grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and the olive-woods, mellowed
into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted their sea-green with
the dark chestnut foliage . Yes, this is the earth; there is no change—
no ruin—no rent made in her verdurous expanse; she continues to
wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, through the
sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant . Why could I not
forget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wild
tumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah! what a deadly breach yawns
between their state and mine! Have not they companions? Have not
they each their mate—their cherished young, their home, which,
though unexpressed to us, is, I doubt not, endeared and enriched,
even in their eyes, by the society which kind nature has created for
them? It is I only that am alone—I, on this little hill top, gazing on
plain and mountain recess—on sky, and its starry population, listen-
ing to every sound of earth, and air, and murmuring wave,—I only
cannot express to any companion my many thoughts, nor lay my
throbbing head on any loved bosom, nor drink from meeting eyes
an intoxicating dew, that transcends the fabulous nectar of the gods .
Shall I not then complain? Shall I not curse the murderous engine
which has mowed down the children of men, my brethren? Shall I
not bestow a malediction on every other of nature’s offspring, which
dares live and enjoy, while I live and suffer?
Ah, no! I will discipline my sorrowing heart to sympathy in your
joys; I will be happy, because ye are so . Live on, ye innocents, na-
ture’s selected darlings; I am not much unlike to you . Nerves, pulse,
brain, joint, and flesh, of such am I composed, and ye are organized
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1257
by the same laws . I have something beyond this, but I will call it
a defect, not an endowment, if it leads me to misery, while ye are
happy . Just then, there emerged from a near copse two goats and a
little kid, by the mother’s side; they began to browze the herbage
of the hill . I approached near to them, without their perceiving me;
I gathered a handful of fresh grass, and held it out; the little one
nestled close to its mother, while she timidly withdrew . The male
stepped forward, fixing his eyes on me: I drew near, still holding out
my lure, while he, depressing his head, rushed at me with his horns .
I was a very fool; I knew it, yet I yielded to my rage . I snatched up a
huge fragment of rock; it would have crushed my rash foe . I poized
it—aimed it—then my heart failed me . I hurled it wide of the mark;
it rolled clattering among the bushes into dell . My little visitants, all
aghast, galloped back into the covert of the wood; while I, my very
heart bleeding and torn, rushed down the hill, and by the violence of
bodily exertion, sought to escape from my miserable self .
No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the en-
emy of all that lives . I will seek the towns—Rome, the capital of
the world, the crown of man’s achievements . Among its storied
streets, hallowed ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion,
I shall not, as here, find every thing forgetful of man; trampling on
his memory, defacing his works, proclaiming from hill to hill, and
vale to vale,—by the torrents freed from the boundaries which he
imposed—by the vegetation liberated from the laws which he en-
forced—by his habitation abandoned to mildew and weeds, that his
power is lost, his race annihilated for ever .
I hailed the Tiber, for that was as it were an unalienable pos-
session of humanity . I hailed the wild Campagna, for every rood
had been trod by man; and its savage uncultivation, of no recent
date, only proclaimed more distinctly his power, since he had given
an honourable name and sacred title to
what else would have been
a worthless, barren track . I entered Eternal Rome by the Porta del
Popolo, and saluted with awe its time-honoured space . The wide
square, the churches near, the long extent of the Corso, the near
eminence of Trinita de’ Monti appeared like fairy work, they were
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1258
so silent, so peaceful, and so very fair . It was evening; and the popu-
lation of animals which still existed in this mighty city, had gone to
rest; there was no sound, save the murmur of its many fountains,
whose soft monotony was harmony to my soul . The knowledge that
I was in Rome, soothed me; that wondrous city, hardly more illustri-
ous for its heroes and sages, than for the power it exercised over the
imaginations of men . I went to rest that night; the eternal burning of
my heart quenched,—my senses tranquil .
The next morning I eagerly began my rambles in search of
oblivion . I ascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna
Palace, under whose roof I had been sleeping; and passing out from
it at its summit, I found myself on Monte Cavallo . The fountain
sparkled in the sun; the obelisk above pierced the clear dark-blue
air . The statues on each side, the works, as they are inscribed, of
Phidias and Praxiteles, stood in undiminished grandeur, represent-
ing Castor and Pollux, who with majestic power tamed the rearing
animal at their side . If those illustrious artists had in truth chiselled
these forms, how many passing generations had their giant propor-
tions outlived! and now they were viewed by the last of the species
they were sculptured to represent and deify . I had shrunk into insig-
nificance in my own eyes, as I considered the multitudinous beings
these stone demigods had outlived, but this after-thought restored
me to dignity in my own conception . The sight of the poetry eter-
nized in these statues, took the sting from the thought, arraying it
only in poetic ideality .
I repeated to myself,—I am in Rome! I behold, and as it were,
familiarly converse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mis-
tress of the imagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions
of generations of extinct men . I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of
my aching heart, by even now taking an interest in what in my youth
I had ardently longed to see . Every part of Rome is replete with rel-
ics of ancient times . The meanest streets are strewed with truncated
columns, broken capitals—Corinthian and Ionic, and sparkling
fragments of granite or porphyry . The walls of the most penurious
dwellings enclose a fluted pillar or ponderous stone, which once
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1259
made part of the palace of the Caesars; and the voice of dead time,
in still vibrations, is breathed from these dumb things, animated and
glorified as they were by man.
I embraced the vast columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator,
which survives in the open space that was the Forum, and leaning
my burning cheek against its cold durability, I tried to lose the sense
of present misery and present desertion, by recalling to the haunted
cell of my brain vivid memories of times gone by . I rejoiced at my
success, as I figured Camillus, the Gracchi, Cato, and last the heroes
of Tacitus, which shine meteors of surpassing brightness during the
murky night of the empire;—as the verses of Horace and Virgil, or
the glowing periods of Cicero thronged into the opened gates of
my mind, I felt myself exalted by long forgotten enthusiasm . I was
delighted to know that I beheld the scene which they beheld—the
scene which their wives and mothers, and crowds of the unnamed
witnessed, while at the same time they honoured, applauded, or wept
for these matchless specimens of humanity . At length, then, I had
found a consolation . I had not vainly sought the storied precincts of
Rome—I had discovered a medicine for my many and vital wounds .
I sat at the foot of these vast columns . The Coliseum, whose na-
ked ruin is robed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in
the sunlight on my right . Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the
Capitol . Triumphal arches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed
the ground at my feet . I strove, I resolved, to force myself to see the
Plebeian multitude and lofty Patrician forms congregated around;
and, as the Diorama of ages passed across my subdued fancy, they
were replaced by the modern Roman; the Pope, in his white stole,
distributing benedictions to the kneeling worshippers; the friar in his
cowl; the dark-eyed girl, veiled by her mezzera; the noisy, sun-burnt
rustic, leading his herd of buffaloes and oxen to the Campo Vaccino .
The romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbow hues of
sky and transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow the
Italians, replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity . I remembered
the dark monk, and floating figures of “The Italian,” and how my
boyish blood had thrilled at the description . I called to mind Corinna
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1260
ascending the Capitol to be crowned, and, passing from the heroine
to the author, reflected how the Enchantress Spirit of Rome held
sovereign sway over the minds of the imaginative, until it rested on
me—sole remaining spectator of its wonders .
I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pause-
less flight; and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round
this spot, suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss
of the present— into self-knowledge—into tenfold sadness . I roused
myself—I cast off my waking dreams; and I, who just now could
almost hear the shouts of the Roman throng, and was hustled by
countless multitudes, now beheld the desart ruins of Rome sleeping
under its own blue sky; the shadows lay tranquilly on the ground;
sheep were grazing untended on the Palatine, and a buffalo stalked
down the Sacred Way that led to the Capitol . I was alone in the Fo-
rum; alone in Rome; alone in the world . Would not one living man
—one companion in my weary solitude, be worth all the glory and
remembered power of this time-honoured city? Double sorrow—
sadness, bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a mourning
garb . The generations I had conjured up to my fancy, contrasted
more strongly with the end of all —the single point in which, as
a pyramid, the mighty fabric of society had ended, while I, on the
giddy height, saw vacant space around me .
From such vague laments I turned to the contemplation of the
minutiae of my situation . So far, I had not succeeded in the sole
object of my desires, the finding a companion for my desolation.
Yet I did not despair . It is true that my inscriptions were set up for
the most part, in insignificant towns and villages; yet, even without
these memorials, it was possible that the person, who like me should
find himself alone in a depopulate land, should, like me, come to
Rome . The more slender my exp
ectation was, the more I chose to
build on it, and to accommodate my actions to this vague possibility .
It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domes-
ticate myself at Rome . It became necessary, that I should look my
disaster in the face— not playing the school-boy’s part of obedience
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1261
without submission; enduring life, and yet rebelling against the laws
by which I lived .
Yet how could I resign myself? Without love, without sympathy,
without communion with any, how could I meet the morning sun,
and with it trace its oft repeated journey to the evening shades? Why
did I continue to live— why not throw off the weary weight of time,
and with my own hand, let out the fluttering prisoner from my ago-
nized breast?—It was not cowardice that withheld me; for the true
fortitude was to endure; and death had a soothing sound accompany-
ing it, that would easily entice me to enter its demesne . But this I
would not do . I had, from the moment I had reasoned on the subject,
instituted myself the subject to fate, and the servant of necessity, the
visible laws of the invisible God—I believed that my obedience was
the result of sound reasoning, pure feeling, and an exalted sense of
the true excellence and nobility of my nature . Could I have seen in
this empty earth, in the seasons and their change, the hand of a blind
power only, most willingly would I have placed my head on the sod,
and closed my eyes on its loveliness for ever . But fate had adminis-
tered life to me, when the plague had already seized on its prey—she
had dragged me by the hair from out the strangling waves—By such
miracles she had bought me for her own; I admitted her authority,
and bowed to her decrees . If, after mature consideration, such was
my resolve, it was doubly necessary that I should not lose the end of
life, the improvement of my faculties, and poison its flow by repin-
ings without end . Yet how cease to repine, since there was no hand
near to extract the barbed spear that had entered my heart of hearts?
I stretched out my hand, and it touched none whose sensations were
responsive to mine . I was girded, walled in, vaulted over, by seven-
fold barriers of loneliness . Occupation alone, if I could deliver my-
self up to it, would be capable of affording an opiate to my sleepless