48. CHAPTER XLVIII.
ATHANATOPSIS.
Toll heavily, — toll sadly! Ring out, oh Funeral Bell!
Thou hast a place in this our world. Thy knell is needed
as well as thy chime, and will find as many hearts prepared
for it. There is a peal, not of exultation as of success, —
not of terror as of the grave; but between these, and yet
louder and deeper, more thrilling, more ecstasizing; prolonged
in all the exercises of profoundest sentiment, —
awakening dim and heavenly responses in the furthest-reaching
glimpses of the imagination, — drowning the voices
of the world, — attempering every vain, every selfish impulse,
— coming upon the hours of meditation and feeling,
like the pensive rhythm of the sea on the beach at midnight;
breaking in upon the abodes of sordidness, lust, and all
unrighteousness, with the hoarse clangor of gathering doom;
a peal that kindles a thousand chords in every heart — new
and strange chords — and shakes with a master hand old
chords, — chords that strike through, eliminate from, and
push beyond, all ordinary pulses of existence, — chords that,
starting in the slumbering ages that have gone by, vibrating
amid the turmoil and din of the present hour, carry
forward the feelings to the regions of Light, Hope, Prophecy:
— it is the peal of Immortality!
Toll on, — toll out, thou Passing Bell! At thy voice, the
solemn owl awakes, and the cry of the whippoorwill is
heard; amaranths and myrtles grow, and daisies and violets
start in their humble beds; willows and cypresses, green
fountains of sorrow, break out on the hill-side and in the
valley; the rock sprouts in obelisks, and sterile marble
yields fair cherubic forms; slips of roses are planted, to be
tended in the long coming years of sorrow; and slips of old,
departed feelings are gathered up, and reänimated in the
bosom of loneliness.
Toll on, — toll out! At thy wail, softness comes over
the sky, and piety into the heart; friendship and love throng
to the cemetery, and tears distil as the dew on the green
leaves that grow about the tomb, and climb as the ivy over
ancient and beloved reminiscences; taste and art go forth
on feet of affection, and, with an eye of tender inspiration,
from all God's earth select the fairest spots for the dead
to lie in.
Toll, toll! Envy departs, animosities subside, alienations
are reconciled; the fretful insect that weaves in the loom of
discord and strife intermits its labor; the corroding worm
at the root of faction and party stops its gnawing.
Toll, toll! Thy plaintive reverberations spread everywhere,
and melt humanity into one; the rich man speaks
gently to the poor, and the poor man pities the rich; the
bereaved Pagan mother folds to her bosom the weeping
Christian mother; the ferocity of revolution pauses, muffles
its grimness and its arms on the threshold of the chamber of
the dying prince. Thy pathos sways the earth, and as the
wind, in eddies of light and shadow, with lulling murmur,
flows across a field of supple wheat, so mournfulness, in
endless, soothing measures, rolls over the hearts of the people
of the world; and from the line to either pole, all tribes
and tongues undulate in one long, ever-recurring, harmonious
tremor of sad sensibility.
Toll long, — toll loud, oh Soul-Bell! the requiem of time,
— the matin of eternity; the dirge of earth, — the anthem
of heaven; the bell that Faith rings at the door of Futurity,
— the bell that summons the guests to the marriage supper of
the Lamb! “Foolish man! that which thou sowest is not
quickened except it die; this corruption shall put on incorruption,
and this mortal immortality.” The bell which ye
hear is the signal-note of the great transition; it announces
the final Germination, — it heralds the released soul to the
paradise above. It rings out over the successive ages and
generations, proclaiming the Quickening era of human
existence, and conducting the grand emergence through
Death to Life.
Strike once more, Christened Bell! Thou art not unwel-come.
Thy solemnity jars not our festivity. As evening
opens a higher, more studded immensity than the day, thy
shadowiness reveals the dim, unspeakable glory which the
sunshine of joy hides to our eye. The twilight of the mortal
is the dawn of the immortal. A burial may succeed a wedding;
— the burial-day of Junia comes not harshly on the
wedding-day of Richard and Melicent.
Slowly, — tenderly! The city is hushed, and the people
thereof listen reverently. Young maidens bring flowers
to her bier, and young men bear her on their shoulders.
Diligent girls from the Factories, and strong men from the
Mills, come out; for Junia had worked in the first, and
Richard belonged to the last. Many knew how Junia had
contributed to the nuptials that had been so universally
celebrated; and she died at the Governor's, and was buried
from his house; and there were united in her death and
burial not only the popular sympathies, but the prestige of
the Family, and there fell into the procession a long concourse
of citizens.
Slowly and tenderly! for Richard and Melicent follow as
chief mourners; and there glide into the procession the
fondness and true-heartedness of maidenhood, and the kindling
and respectful admiration of young men; and much
pursed and austere meanness of manhood relaxes, and
walks after. Old and warm recollections of what once
was, and the cherished but fading idealism of what may be,
moved by the sound of the bell, lengthen out the throng.
Aspiration comes up from the lowly hovel, humility leaves
the lordly chamber, and pity breaks from many a hard and
coarse environment, to wait on the burial.
Toll cheerfully! cheerfully! Memmy and Bebby are
there, and other little children, walking two and two.
There was a tear in Memmy's eye, for she had thought that
she might become an angel too. In that morning of her
days, and early dawn of thought, the dews of immortal feeling
fell on her eye-lids. The “reminiscence of heaven” within
her got glimpses of its bright home, and it seemed not a
great way to Jesus, who she knew took little children into
his arms and blessed them.
Toll mercifully, oh mercifully! for the traducer is there.
In deep black, folded in a deeper night of sorrow and contrition,
slowly follows Miss Eyre, — “the woman which was
a sinner,” weeping at the feet of that great Blessedness, so
lately revealed, so suddenly snatched away, but from which
to her soul descended the words of peace and forgiveness,
which may yet dry her tears, and animate her for the duties
of life.
On, on, to Rosemary Dell, through solemn shades and
soft circuits, to the grave by the side of Violet!
The Minister sprinkled dust on the coffin, and said,
“Dust to dust,—earth to earth;” and, looking aloft, he
added, “Spirit to spirit, — the soul to its God! Behold,”
he continued, “where they have laid her! Sweet is the
sleep of death, — beautiful the repose of the grave! No
more shall storm disturb her peace; no more shall calamity
afflict her days! But,” he added “she is not here, — she
is risen. The grave cannot contain the immortal essence.
She has ascended to her Father and our Father, to her
God and our God. A flower of the Spiritual life, she was
permitted to blossom beneath our skies, on this our soil.
We beheld her beauty, — we inhaled her fragrance. But
that Spiritual life has not its eternal home here. She died,
and is quickened; — she was quickened even to our sight.
Dropping the perishable tabernacle of the flesh, her soul
rises to the beatitude of the life beyond our life. The memory
and power of her virtues remain for our comfort and
edification.”
