 | Mosses from an old manse |  |
EARTH'S HOLOCAUST.
Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come,
is a matter of little or no moment—this wide world had become so
overburthened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that
the inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general
bonfire. The site fixed upon, at the representation of the insurance
companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on
the globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where
no human habitation would be endangered by the flames, and
where a vast assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire
the show. Having a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining,
likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire might reveal some
profundity or moral truth, heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I
made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At my arrival,
although the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively
small, the torch had already been applied. Amid that boundless
plain, in the dusk of the evening, like a far-off star alone in the
firmament, there was merely visible one tremulous gleam, whence
none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was destined to
ensue. With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers,
women holding up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows,
lumbering baggage wagons, and other vehicles, great and small,
and from far and near, laden with articles that were judged fit for
nothing but to be burnt.
“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired
I of a bystander, for I was desirous of knowing the whole process
of the affair from beginning to end.
The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years
old, or thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on;
he struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true
value of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little
personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of
them. Before answering my question, he looked me in the face,
by the kindling light of the fire.
“Oh some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely
suitable to the purpose—no other, in fact, than yesterday's
newspapers, last month's magazines, and last year's withered
leaves. Here, now, comes some antiquated trash, that will take
fire like a handful of shavings.”
As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of
the bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the
Herald's office; the blazonry of coat-armor, the crests and devices
of illustrious families; pedigrees that extended back, like lines of
light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, garters,
and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bauble as it
might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast
significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most
precious of moral or material facts, by the worshippers of the gorgeous
past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed
into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of
knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties,
and Napoleon's decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribands of
which were entangled with those of the ancient order of St.
Louis. There, too, were the medals of our own society of Cincinnati,
by means of which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary
knights came near being constituted out of the king-quellers
of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents of nobility
of German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English
peers, from the worm-eaten instruments signed by William the
who has received his honors from the fair hand of Victoria.
At sight of these dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid
jets of flame that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile
of earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up
a joyous shout, and clapt their hands with an emphasis that made
the welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same
spiritual infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due
only to Heaven's better workmanship. But now there rushed
towards the blazing heap a grey-haired man, of stately presence,
wearing a coat from the breast of which a star, or other badge of
rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not
the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was
the demeanor—the habitual, and almost native dignity—of one
who had been born to the idea of his own social superiority, and
had never felt it questioned till that moment.
“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to
his eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless, with a degree
of stateliness; “people, what have you done! This fire is consuming
all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that
could have prevented your relapse thither. We—the men of the
privileged orders—were those who kept alive, from age to age, the
old chivalrous spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the
higher, the purer, the more refined and delicate life! With the
nobles, too, you cast off the poet, the painter, the sculptor—all
the beautiful arts; for we were their patrons, and created the
atmosphere in which they flourish. In abolishing the majestic
distinctions of rank, society loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness—”
More he would doubtless have spoken, but here there arose an
outcry, sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether
drowned the appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting
back into the crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found
insignificance.
“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the
same fire!” shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his
foot. “And, henceforth, let no man dare to show a piece of
musty parchment as his warrant for lording it over his fellows!
If he have strength of arm, well and good; it is one species of
superiority. If he have wit, wisdom, courage, force of character,
let these attributes do for him what they may. But, from this day
forward, no mortal must hope for place and consideration by
reckoning up the mouldy bones of his ancestors! That nonsense
is done away.”
“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side,
in a low voice, however—“if no worse nonsense comes in its
place. But, at all events, this species of nonsense has fairly
lived out its life.”
There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of
this time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burnt out, there
came another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple
robes of royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors
and kings. All these had been condemned as useless baubles,
playthings, at best, fit only for the infancy of the world, or rods
to govern and chastise it in its nonage; but with which universal
manhood, at its full-grown stature, could no longer brook to be
insulted. Into such contempt had these regal insignia now fallen,
that the gilded crown and tinseled robes of the player-king, from
Drury-Lane Theatre, had been thrown in among the rest, doubtless
as a mockery of his brother-monarchs on the great stage of
the world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown-jewels of
England, glowing and flashing in the midst of the fire. Some of
them had been delivered down from the time of the Saxon princes;
others were purchased with vast revenues, or, perchance, ravished
and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had
fallen in that spot, and been shattered into fragments. The
splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection, save in those
inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It
were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria's mantle
was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the
French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible
to distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however,
that I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire
with the Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards flung into
the flames.
“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,”
observed my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the
smoke of a royal wardrobe. “Let us get to windward, and see
what they are doing on the other side of the bonfire.”
We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness
the arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians—as the votaries
of temperance call themselves now-a-days—accompanied by
thousands of the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great
apostle at their head. They brought a rich contribution to the
bonfire; being nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels
of liquor in the world, which they rolled before them across the
prairie.
“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached
the verge of the fire—“one shove more, and the work is done!
And now let us stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor!”
Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach
of the flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon
beheld them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds, and
threatened to set the sky itself on fire. And well it might. For
here was the whole world's stock of spirituous liquors, which,
instead of kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual
startled all mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire
which would otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions.
Meantime, numberless bottles of precious wine were flung into
the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, and
grew, like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it
quaffed. Never again will the insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend
be so pampered! Here were the treasures of famous bon-vivants
—liquors that had been tossed on ocean, and mellowed in the sun,
and hoarded long in the recesses of the earth—the pale, the gold,
the ruddy juice of whatever vineyards were most delicate—the
entire vintage of Tokay—all mingling in one stream with the
vile fluids of the common pot-house, and contributing to heighten
the self-same blaze. And while it rose in a gigantic spire, that
seemed to wave against the arch of the firmament, and combine
itself with the light of stars, the multitude gave a shout, as if the
broad earth were exulting in its deliverance from the curse of
ages.
But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life
would be gloomier than ever, when that brief illumination should
sink down. While the reformers were at work, I overheard
muttered expostulations from several respectable gentlemen with
red noses, and wearing gouty shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose
face looked like a hearth where the fire is burnt out, now expressed
his discontent more openly and boldly.
“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that
we can never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor
man in sorrow and perplexity?—how is he to keep his heart
warm against the cold winds of this cheerless earth?—and what
do you propose to give him in exchange for the solace that you
take away? How are old friends to sit together by the fireside,
without a cheerful glass between them? A plague upon your
reformation! It is a sad world, a cold world, a selfish world, a
fellowship is gone for ever!”
This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders. But,
preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating
the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon-companions had
dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a
soul to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any
liquor to sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case;
for I had observed him, at a critical moment, filch a bottle of
fourth-proof brandy that fell beside the bonfire, and hide it in his
pocket.
The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of,
the zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire
with all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And
now came the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco.
These, being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to
the size of a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such
potent fragrance that methought we should never draw pure
breath again. The present sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers
of the weed more than any that they had hitherto witnessed.
“Well, they've put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman,
flinging it into the flames in a pet. “What is this world coming
to? Everything rich and racy,—all the spice of life—is to be
condemned as useless. Now that they have kindled the bonfire,
if these nonsensical reformers would fling themselves into it, all
would be well enough!”
“Be patient,” responded a staunch conservative; “it will come
to that in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.”
From the general and systematic measures of reform, I now
turned to consider the individual contributions to this memorable
bonfire. In many instances these were of a very amusing character.
One poor fellow threw in his empty purse, and another
ladies threw in their last season's bonnets, together with heaps of
ribbons, yellow lace, and much other half-worn milliner's ware;
all of which proved even more evanescent in the fire than it had
been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers of both sexes—discarded
maids or bachelors, and couples mutually weary of one
another—tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets.
A hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of
office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false ones. The
Rev. Sidney Smith,—having voyaged across the Atlantic for that
sole purpose—came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin, and threw
in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with the
broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years old, in
the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his playthings;
a college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined
by the spread of homœopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines;
a physician, his library; a parson, his old sermons; and
a fine gentleman of the old school, his code of manners, which he
had formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation.
A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slily threw in her
dead husband's miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress,
would willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the
flames, but could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom.
An American author, whose works were neglected by the public,
threw his pen and paper into the bonfire, and betook himself to
some less discouraging occupation. It somewhat startled me to
overhear a number of ladies, highly respectable in appearance,
proposing to fling their gowns and petticoats into the flames, and
assume the garb, together with the manners, duties, offices, and
responsibilities, of the opposite sex.
What favor was accorded to this scheme, I am unable to say;
my attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half-delirious
girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless
that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man,
however, ran to her rescue.
“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew here back from
the fierce embrace of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and
abide Heaven's will. So long as you possess a living soul, all
may be restored to its first freshness. These things of matter,
and creations of human fantasy, are fit for nothing but to be burnt,
when once they have had their day. But your day is eternity!”
“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to
have sunk down into deep despondency; “yes, and the sunshine
is blotted out of it!”
It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons
and munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire, with the
exception of the world's stock of gunpower, which, as the safest
mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea.
This intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion.
The hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millenium
was already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose
view mankind was a breed of bull-dogs, prophesied that all the
old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of
the race would disappear; these qualities, as they affirmed,
requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted themselves,
however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war
was impracticable, for any length of time together.
Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had
long been the voice of battle—the artillery of the Armada, the
battering-trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon
and Wellington—were trundled into the midst of the fire.
By the continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed
so intense that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was
wonderful to behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter
melted away like playthings of wax. Then the armies of the
music playing triumphant marches, and flung in their muskets
and swords. The standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward
at their banners, all tattered with shot-holes, and inscribed
with the names of victorious fields, and, giving them a last flourish
on the breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched
them upward in its rush toward the clouds. This ceremony being
over, the world was left without a single weapon in its hands,
except, possibly, a few old king's arms and rusty swords, and
other trophies of the Revolution, in some of our state armories.
And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets brayed all together,
as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and eternal
peace, and the announcement that glory was no longer to be won
by blood; but that it would henceforth be the contention of the
human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that beneficence,
in the future annals of the earth, would claim the praise
of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated,
and caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at
the horror and absurdity of war.
But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately
old commander—by his war-worn figure and rich military dress,
he might have been one of Napoleon's famous marshals—who,
with the rest of the world's soldiery, had just flung away the
sword that had been familiar to his right hand for half a century.
“Aye, aye!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they
please; but, in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only
made more work for the armorers and cannon-founders.”
“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine
that the human race will ever so far return on the steps of its
past madness as to weld another sword, or cast another
cannon?”
“There will be no need,” observed, with a sneer, one who
wished to slay his brother, he was at no loss for a weapon.”
“We shall see,” replied the veteran commander. “If I am
mistaken, so much the better; but in my opinion—without pretending
to philosophize about the matter—the necessity of war
lies far deeper than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! Is
there a field for all the petty disputes of individuals, and shall
there be no great law-court for the settlement of national difficulties?
The battle-field is the only court where such suits can be
tried!”
“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced
stage of civilisation, Reason and Philanthropy combined will
constitute just such a tribunal as is requisite.”
“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as
he limped away.
The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had
hitherto been considered of even greater importance to the well-being
of society, than the warlike munitions which we had
already seen consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all
over the earth, in quest of the machinery by which the different
nations were accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A
shudder passed through the multitude, as these ghastly emblems
were dragged forward. Even the flames seemed at first to shrink
away, displaying the shape and murderous contrivance of each
in a full blaze of light, which, of itself, was sufficient to convince
mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old
implements of cruelty—those horrible monsters of mechanism—
those inventions which it seemed to demand something worse than
man's natural heart to contrive, and which had lurked in the
dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the suject of terror-stricken
legend—were now brought forth to view. Headsmen's axes,
with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast collection
of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian victims,
guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had
borne it from one to another of the blood-stained streets of Paris.
But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky
of the triumph of the earth's redemption, when the gallows
made its appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed
forward, and, putting himself in the path of the reformers,
bellowed hoarsely, and fought with brute fury to stay their
progress.
It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner
should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by
which he himself had his livelihood, and worthier individuals
their death. But it deserved special note, that men of a far different
sphere,—even of that class in whose guardianship the
world is apt to trust its benevolence—were found to take the
hangman's view of the question.
“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled
by a false philanthropy!—you know not what you do. The
gallows is a Heaven-ordained instrument! Bear it back, then,
reverently, and set it up in its old place; else the world will fall
to speedy ruin and desolation!”
“Onward, onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into
the flames with the accursed instrument of man's bloody policy.
How can human law inculcate benevolence and love, while it
persists in setting up the gallows as its chief symbol? One
heave more, good friends, and the world will be redeemed from
its greatest error!”
A thousand hands, that nevertheless, loathed the touch, now
lent their assistance, and thrust the ominous burthen far, far, into
the centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred
image was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes.
“That was well done!” exclaimed I.
“Yes, it was well done,” replied—but with less enthusiasm
side; “well done, if the world be good enough for the measure.
Death, however, is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with,
in any condition between the primal innocence and that other
purity and perfection, which, perchance, we are destined to attain,
after travelling round the full circle. But, at all events, it is
well that the experiment should now be tried.”
“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and
ardent leader in this triumph. “Let the heart have its voice
here, as well as the intellect. And as for ripeness—and as for
progress—let mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest
thing that, at any given period, it has attained the perception of;
and surely that thing cannot be wrong, nor wrongly timed.”
I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or
whether the good people around the bonfire were really growing
more enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures,
in the full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep
them company. For instance, some threw their marriage certificates
into the flames, and declared themselves candidates for a
higher, holier, and more comprehensive union than that which
had subsisted from the birth of time, under the form of of theconnubial
tie. Others hastened to the vaults of banks, and to the
coffers of the rich—all of which were open to the first comer, on
this fated occasion—and brought entire bales of paper-money to
enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its intensity.
Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and
exhaustless, was to be the golden currency of the world. At
this intelligence, the bankers, and speculators in the stocks, grew
pale; and a pickpocket, who had reaped a rich harvest among
the crowd, fell down in a deadly fainting-fit. A few men of business
burnt their day-books and ledgers, the notes and obligations
of their creditors, and all other evidences of debts due to themselves;
while perhaps a somewhat larger number satisfied their
of their own indebtment. There was then a cry, that the
period was arrived when the title-deeds of landed property should
be given to the flames, and the whole soil of the earth revert to
the public, from whom it had been wrongfully abstracted, and
most unequally distributed among individuals. Another party
demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of government,
legislative acts, statute-books, and everything else on which human
invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should
at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free as
the man first created.
Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these
propositions, is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters
were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly.
“See!—see!—what heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a
fellow, who did not seem to be a lover of literature. “Now we
shall have a glorious blaze!”
“That's just the thing,” said a modern philosopher. “Now
we shall get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has
hitherto pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been
incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads!
Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world,
indeed?”
“But what is to become of the Trade?” cried a frantic bookseller.
“Oh, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise,”
cooly observed an author. “It will be a noble funeral pile!”
The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage
of progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of
former ages had ever dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest
absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered
with their poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly,
a thorough and searching investigation had swept the booksellers'
little book-shelf by the country fireside, and had brought the
world's entire mass of printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell
the already mountain-bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick,
heavy folios, containing the labors of lexicographers, commentators,
and encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling among the
embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes, like rotten
wood. The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the
hundred volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant
shower of sparkles, and little jets of flame; while the current
literature of the same nation burnt red and blue, and threw an
infernal light over the visages of the spectators, converting them
all to the aspect of parti-colored fiends. A collection of German
stories emitted a scent of brimstone. The English standard authors
made excellent fuel, generally exhibiting the properties of sound
oak logs. Milton's works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze,
gradually reddening into a coal, which promised to endure longer
than almost any other material of the pile. From Shakspeare
there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor that men shaded
their eyes as against the sun's meridian glory; nor even when the
works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he cease
to flash forth a dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous heap.
It is my belief that he is still blazing as fervidly as ever.
“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked
I, “he might then consume the midnight oil to some good
purpose.”
“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt
to do, or at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief
benefit to be expected from this conflagration of past literature
undoubtedly is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light
their lamps at the sun or stars.”
“If they can reach so high,” said I. “But that task requires
a giant, who may afterward distribute the light among inferior
Prometheus; but when once he had done the deed, a thousand
hearths were kindled by it.”
It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion
between the physical mass of any given author, and the property
of brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance,
there was not a quarto volume of the last century—nor, indeed,
of the present—that could compete, in that particular, with a
child's little gilt-covered book, containing Mother Goose's Melodies.
The Life and Death of Tom Thumb outlasted the biography
of Marlborough. An epic—indeed, a dozen of them—was
converted to white ashes, before the single sheet of an old ballad
was half consumed. In more than one case, too, when volumes
of applauded verse proved incapable of anything better than a
stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some nameless bard—perchance
in the corner of a newspaper—soared up among the stars,
with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of the properties
of flame, methought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer light
than almost any other productions of his day; contrasting beautifully
with the fitful and lurid gleams, and gushes of black vapor,
that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As
for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning
pastille.
I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American
authors, and scrupulously noted, by my watch, the precise
number of moments that changed most of them from shabbily
printed books to indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious,
however, if not perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I
shall content myself with observing, that it was not invariably
the writer most frequent in the public mouth that made the most
splendid appearance in the bonfire. I especially remember, that
a great deal of excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin
volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to speak the
very disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in
reference to several writers, native as well as foreign. Their
books, though of highly respectable figure, instead of bursting
into a blaze, or even smouldering out their substance in smoke,
suddenly melted away, in a manner that proved them to be ice.
If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must
here be confessed, that I looked for them with fatherly interest,
but in vain. Too probably, they were changed to vapor by the
first action of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their
quiet way, they contributed a glimmering spark or two to the
splendor of the evening.
“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking
gentelman in green spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined,
and there is nothing to live for any longer! The business of
my life is snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or
money!”
“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm—one
of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts.
His clothes, you see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He
has no inward fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that
the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to become of the
poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for him?”
“My dear sir,” said I, to the desperate book-worm, “is not
Nature better than a book?—is not the human heart deeper than
any system of philosophy?—is not life replete with more instruction
than past observers have found it possible to write down in
maxims? Be of good cheer! The great book of Time is still
spread wide open before us; and, if we read it aright, it will be
to us a volume of eternal Truth.”
“Oh, my books, my books, my precious, printed books!” reiterated
the forlorn book-worm. “My only reality was a bound
pamphlet!”
In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was
now descending upon the blazing heap, in the shape of a cloud
of pamphlets from the press of the New World. These, likewise,
were consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the
earth, for the first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the
plague of letters—an enviable field for the authors of the next
generation!
“Well!—and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I,
somewhat anxiously. “Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and
then leap boldly off into infinite space, I know now that we can
carry reform to any further point.”
“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer.
“Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without
the addition of fuel that will startle many persons, who have lent
a willing hand thus far.”
Nevertheless, there appeared to be a relaxation of effort, for a
little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement
were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a
philosopher threw his theory into the flames; a sacrifice which,
by those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most
remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however,
was by no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning
to take a moment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting
all the withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby
recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was
mere by-play.
“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion.
To my astonishment, the persons who now advanced into the
vacant space around the mountain fire, bore surplices and other
priestly garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and
the great Act of Faith. Crosses, from the spires of old
cathedrals, were cast upon the heap with as little remorse as if
the reverence of centuries, passing in long array beneath the lofty
towers, had not looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The
font, in which infants were consecrated to God; the sacramental
vessels, whence Piety received the hallowed draught; were given
to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my
heart to see, among these devoted relics, fragments of the humble
communion-tables and undecorated pulpits, which I recognized as
having been torn from the meeting-houses of New England.
Those simple edifices might have been permitted to retain all of
sacred embellishments that their Puritan founders had bestowed,
even though the mighty structure of St. Peter's had sent its spoils
to the fire of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were
but the externals of religion, and might most safely be relinquished
by spirits that best knew their deep significance.
“All is well,” said I cheerfully. “The wood-paths shall be
the aisles of our cathedral—the firmament itself shall be its ceiling!
What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his
worshippers? Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery
that even the holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the
more sublime in its simplicity.”
“True,” said my companion. “But will they pause here?”
The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the
general destruction of books already described, a holy volume—
that stood apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet,
in one sense, was at its head—had been spared. But the Titan of
innovation—angel or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of
deeds befitting both characters—at first shaking down only the old
and rotten shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible
hand upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice
of our moral and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the
or words, or to limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material
existence. Truths, which the heavens trembled at, were now but
a fable of the world's infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice
of human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the embers
of that awful pile, except the Book, which, though a celestial
revelation to past ages, was but a voice from a lower sphere, as
regarded the present race of man? It was done! Upon the
blazing heap of falsehood and worn out truth—things that the
earth had never needed, or had ceased to need, or had grown
childishly weary of—fell the ponderous church Bible, the great
old volume, that had lain so long on the cushion of the pulpit,
and whence the pastor's solemn voice had given hold utterance on
so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the family Bible,
which the long-buried patriarch had read to his children—in prosperity
or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer shade of trees
—and had bequeathed downward, as the heir-loom of generations.
There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that had been the
soul's friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took
courage, whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting
both in the strong assurance of immortality.
All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then
a mighty wind came roaring across the plain, with a desolate
howl, as if it were the angry lamentations of the Earth for the
loss of Heaven's sunshine, and it shook the gigantic pyramid of
flame, and scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations
around upon the spectators.
“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my cheek grew pale,
and seeing a like change in the visage about me.
“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had
so often spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle,
with a singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an
observer. “Be of good courage—nor yet exult too much; for
than the world might be willing to believe.”
“How can that be?” exclaimed I impatiently. “Has it not
consumed everything? Has it not swallowed up, or melted down,
every human or divine appendage of our mortal state that had
substance enough to be acted on by fire? Will there be anything
left us to-morrow morning, better or worse than a heap of embers
and ashes?”
“Assuredly there will,”said my grave friend. “Come hither
to-morrow morning—or whenever the combustible portion of the
pile shall be quite burnt out—and you will find among the ashes
everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames.
Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself with
the gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of
to-day. Not a truth is destroyed—nor buried so deep among the
ashes, but it will be raked up at last.”
This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it;
the more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a
copy of the Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being
blackened into tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness
as the finger-marks of human imperfection were purified away.
Certain marginal notes and commentaries, it is true, yielded to the
intensity of the fiery test, but without detriment to the smallest
syllable that had flamed from the pen of inspiration.
“Yes—there is the proof of what you say.” answered I, turning
to the observer. “But if only what is evil can feel the action
of the fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable
utility. Yet if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether
the world's expectation of benefit would be realized by it.”
“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a
group in front of the blazing pile. “Possibly they may teach
you something useful, without intending it.”
The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and
the gallows—the hangman, in short—together with the last thief
and the last murderer; all three of whom were clustered about
the last toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle,
which he had rescued from the general destruction of wines and
spirits. This little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of
despondency; as considering that the purified world must needs
be utterly unlike the sphere that they had hitherto known, and
therefore but a strange and desolate abode for gentlemen of their
kidney.
“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman,
“that—as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor—I help
you, my three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree,
and then hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for
us any longer.”
“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage,
who now joined the group—his complexion was indeed
fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed with a redder light than that
of the bonfire—“Be not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall
see good days yet. There is one thing that these wiseacres have
forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of
the conflagration is just nothing at all; yes—though they had
burnt the earth itself to a cinder?”
“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer.
“What but the human heart itself!” said the dark visaged
stranger, with a portentous grin. “And unless they hit upon
some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue
all the shapes of wrong and misery—the same old shapes,
or worse ones—which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble
to consume to ashes. I have stood by, this live-long night, and
laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. Oh, take my word
for it, it will be the old world yet!”
This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened
age-long endeavor for perfection had served only to render him
the mockery of the Evil Principle, from the fatal circumstance
of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart—the heart
—there was the little yet boundless sphere, wherein existed the
original wrong, of which the crime and misery of this outward
world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere; and the
many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem
almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms, and
vanish of their own accord. But if we go no deeper than the
Intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern
and rectify what is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a
dream; so unsubstantial, that it matters little whether the bonfire,
which I have so faithfully described, were what we chose to call
a real event, and a flame that would scorch the finger—or only a
phosphoric radiance, and a parable of my own brain!
| Mosses from an old manse | |