| | 1 | Author: | Ware
William
1797-1852 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Probus, or, Rome in the third century  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Marcus and Lucilia are inconsolable. Their grief,
I fear, will be lasting as it is violent. They have no
resource but to plunge into affairs and drive away memory
by some active and engrossing occupation. Yet
they cannot always live abroad; they must at times
return to themselves and join the company of their own
thoughts. And then memory is not to be put off; at
such moments this faculty seems to constitute the mind
more than any other. It becomes in a manner the mind
itself. The past rises up in spite of ourselves, and overshadows
the present. Whether its scenes have been
prosperous or afflictive, but especially if they have been
shameful, do they present themselves with all the vividness
of the objects before us and the passing hour, and
minister to our joy or increase our pains. We in vain
attempt to escape. We are prisoners in the hands of a
giant. To forget is not in our power. The will is impotent.
The effort to forget is often but an effort to remember.
Fast as we fly, so fast the enemy of our peace
pursues. Memory is a companion who never leaves us
— or never leaves us long. It is the true Nemesis.
Tartarean regions have no worse woes, nor the Hell of
Christians, than memory inflicts upon those who have
done evil. My friends struggle in vain. They have
not done evil indeed, but they have suffered it. The
sorest calamity that afflicts mortals has overtaken them;
their choicest jewel has been torn from them; and they
can no more drown the memory of their loss than they
can take that faculty itself and tear it from their souls.
Comfort cannot come from that quarter. It can come
only from being re-possessed of that which has been lost
hereafter and from enjoying the hope of that felicity now.
See how Marcus writes. After much else he says, | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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