Sheerness

“ Had Shelley been right? Was death, for Christian or pagan, only a part of the inwoven design, glad or sad, on that veil which hides from us some high reality? Was Dallas—was Padre Somalian—nearer right than his own questioning that had ended in negation? Had Sheridan found the girl-wife he longed for—beyond the questioning and the stars? And was that serene soul, whose body now sifted to its primal elements, walking free somewhere in a universe of loving intelligence [376] which to him, George Gordon, had been at most only “The Great Mechanism”? ”

“ I quote these words as creditable to the feeling and good sense of Sheridan. Whatever may be thought of particular faiths and sects, a belief in a life beyond this world is the only thing that pierces through the walls of our prison-house, and lets hope shine in upon a scene, that would be otherwise bewildered and desolate. The proselytism of the Atheist is, indeed, a dismal mission. ”

“ The philosopher, secure that he had once succeeded, and believing that he might again, began to concoct the same medicine once more. He was shut up with his books and drugs, and I had a holiday. I dressed myself with care; I looked in an old but polished shield, which served me for a mirror; methought my good looks had wonderfully improved. I hurried beyond the precincts of the town, joy in my soul, the beauty of heaven and earth around me. I turned my steps towards the castle--I could look on its lofty turrets with lightness of heart, for I was cured of love. ”

“ Such as the child was, we shall find the man to have remained unaltered through the short space of life allowed him. Loving, innocent, sensitive, secluded from the vulgar concerns of his companions, strongly moralized after a peculiar and inborn type of excellence, drawing his inspirations from Nature and from his own soul in solitude, Shelley passed across the stage of this world, attended by a splendid vision which sustained him at a perilous height above the kindly race of men. ”

“ The solitude of the wilderness, the joy of the Unseen Presence, and rest from the turmoil of the world and the differences of men, are my meat and drink. In due time they will heal the wounds of my repentant soul, and be manifested in new strength of body, howbeit a weakness yet remaineth with me. Peradventure it is a messenger to rebuke any spiritual pride that may beset me, and also that through its overcoming I may wax stronger in the inner man.
“If any disciples of the New Faith should journey so far as Tarsus, I beseech thee that thou be further taught of them. ”

“ The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, Impatient to be where the battle-field calls; Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, With Sheridan only ten miles away. Under his spurning feet the road Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed, And the landscape sped away behind Like an ocean flying before the wind; And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, Swept on, with his wild eyes full of fire. But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire— He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, With Sheridan only five miles away. ”

“ O my brothers! we must, from the heart, have such a purity of mind and thought that our very bodies shall become incarnations of divinity. A true revelation of the Spirit of Truth is not vouchsafed unto the worldly-wise and prudent, but to the childlike, the poor in spirit, and the pure in heart. The heavenly germ is within; but no man knoweth it, until it be quickened into life, when it bringeth forth a witness of fruits,—love, joy, peace, and healing. I adjure you, that as ye live unto the flesh or even after ceremonial traditions, ye shall reap a Gehenna in yourselves and in your members. ”

“ I have been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation; yet, until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had taken up its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being. The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I am without its inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness and strength; disdain not yet this rent shrine of fleshly mortality, O immortal Capability! While one fellow creature remains to whom aid can be afforded, stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine! ”

“ The joy and gladness they evince when we enter their city serves to encourage and inspire us, and the sorrow and pain we see in their fair countenances, and often hear them express, with trembling lips and streaming eyes, as we leave them to endure the cruel and cowardly insults and petty persecutions of Sheridan's hirelings, fill our hearts with indescribable regret. ”

“ You, I feel convinced, were sent here to help me.
"Therefore, I have saved your life that you may live with me. Our young ones will again be white. You shall be the head of us—and will save us from again becoming such as we were long ago." ”

“ Here! how durst you, fellow, thus abruptly break in upon our devotions?
Port. I thought they were finished.
Paul. No, they were not—were they, brother Francis?
Fran. Not by a bottle each.
Paul. But neither you nor your fellows mark how the hours go; no, you mind nothing but the gratifying of your appetites; ye eat, and swill, and sleep, and gourmandise, and thrive, while we are wasting in mortification.
Port. We ask no more than nature craves.
Paul. 'Tis false, ye have more appetites than hairs! and your flushed, sleek, and pampered appearance is the disgrace of our order— out on't! ”

“ But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter’s heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terrible desire had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it chanced that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he had done.
And Wisdom smiled sadly.
“Many men,” he said, “have spread that net for Truth; but they have never found her. On the grains of credulity she will not feed; in the net of wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. ”

“ Wore the same smile, yet with a trace more weak.
Lone sorrow came as life declined, and care,
And age, with slowly furrowing line, was there.
I could have spared this fearful sight! Most strange
Is the eventful tale of mortal change,
Inevitable; but death, brought so nigh,
In form so tangible, harrows the eye.
As all the past floats like a cloud away,
Alas, poor Sheridan! I turn and say,
Not without feelings which such sights impart,
Sad, but instructive, to the Christian's heart!
May 18, 1826.
RETURN OF GEORGE III. TO WINDSOR CASTLE.
Not that thy name, illustrious dome! ”

“ The two young disciples of the New Faith sat near her as the moments passed silently by.
[pg 378] A Voice spoke through them, but not in words. “Child of God! Thou art a spark of Immortal Flame! an image of the Universal Spirit! It is thine to govern and harmonize the outward form. Thou hast new life already! God is Spirit, and his dwelling-place is with his offspring. He is thy Life, Love, and Strength, through the understanding of the laws of thy being. Behold the very breath of God is within thee! His strength is freely thine own!”
* * * * * * * * * * Serenus retired from the room. ”

“ But then, as the little bit of history brought up the past, I felt the tide of feeling sweeping through me, and all the dread enthusiasm of the race woke within me:—
'There beside the singing river
That dark mass of men are seen,
Far above their shining weapons
Hung their own immortal green!'
But this is a bad business, sir, for soul and body. ”

“ His life is a forfeit to the weal of England. I am no man of blood, lady:—the signing of death-warrants is no joy to me; but one example on a scaffold may save the lives of thousands. Lady, your visit will only disturb his last moments. I have cared for his soul:—a godly minister doth see him; and I learn that he doth exercise himself as a dying man should. It seems that you have not seen him for many [Pg 294] years:—he will not expect thee—does not think of thee:—cousinship is not so close a kindred. I cannot grant thy prayer. ”

“ As a poet and not as a poet, as an acknowledged legislator for the race, as a philosopher, (a searcher after, or lover of wisdom) and as a political and social reformer, it is my intention to treat Shelley this evening, and having finished my prefatory remarks, will now regard him in those attributes which peculiarly should enshrine him in your hearts and mine. ”

“ It was something which I can neither define nor analyze—the personal power of Sheridan. It is the secret of every great leader of men. Now Sheridan had imparted more than information to these men. Is it too much to say that he put himself into them? From such men power streams out like electricity from a huge dynamo. ”

“ I could not deem myself a slave. Even Shelley, or that mood in him that was preoccupied with the fiery pinnacles in the clouds, kept the diction of his most ethereal flights in tune with the same instinctive necessity. ”

“ When I stood on my native hills, and saw plain and mountain stretch out to the utmost limits of my vision, speckled by the dwellings of my countrymen, and subdued to fertility by their labours, the earth's very centre was fixed for me in that spot, and the rest of her orb was as a fable, to have forgotten which would have cost neither my imagination nor understanding an effort. ”

“ The history of these things and of his long wanderings, now so happily ended, must be reserved for a future hour; when assembled in our beloved Siena, exiles and foes no longer, we shall long enjoy the happiness which Providence, after so many trials, has bounteously reserved for us.”
XIII.
THE PARVENUE. Why do I write my melancholy story? Is it as a lesson, to prevent any other from wishing to rise to rank superior to that in which they are born? No! miserable as I am, others might have been happy, I doubt not, in my position: the chalice has been poisoned for me alone! ”

“ I quarrel not with—I admire—those who can be good and benovolent, and yet keep their hearts to themselves, the shrine of worship for God, a haven which no wind can enter. I am not one of these, and yet take no shame therefore: I feel my many weaknesses, and know that some of these form a part of my strength; the reviled part of our nature being a portion of that which elevates us to the godlike. ”

“ The Fighting Sheeney was at his wits' end. He strode about challenging everyone to fight, receiving not the slightest recognition, cursing, reviling, threatening, bullying. The darkness always waited for him to resume his mattress, then burst out in all sorts of maledictions upon his head and the sacred head of his lord and master. The latter was told to put out his candle, go to sleep and give the rest a chance to enjoy what pleasure they might in forgetfulness of their woes. ”

“ There is no other writer, I think, who seems to grasp so clearly as Shelley the everlasting and immutable laws of Naturismus, or who believed so fully in the divine mission of man, and the religion of humanity. Ever soaring into the ideal, philosophizing by the aid of his emotional impulses, Shelley possessed, like all true Hermetists and Theosophists imbued with mysticism, a wonderful power of continued abstraction in the contemplation of the Supreme Power. ”

“ No harmful shaft can reach the righteous man, Standing erect amid the storms of hate, Defying hurt and injury and ban, Surrounded by the trembling slaves of Fate. Majestic in the strength of silent power, Serene he stands, nor changes not nor turns; Patient and firm in suffering's darkest hour, Time bends to him, and death and doom he spurns. ”

“ The friends walked slowly back towards the house—there was a long pause in their discourse. It was broken by Jane asking, “You surely admit, dear cousin, that there is a vast difference in the fortunes and the trials of mankind?”
“The seeming difference is vast, but not perhaps the real:—we see only the outward aspect of suffering and of prosperity—but the cup of life is mixed.”
“Surely to many, who are prosperous and happy, few trials are appointed:—they are pleasant in their lives, and honoured in their deaths; they appear even upon earth to be the favourites of Heaven.” ”

“ Let us put a complex entree into a simple old gentleman; let us not put a simple entree into a complex old gentleman. So long as human society will leave my spiritual inside alone, I will allow it, with a comparative submission, to work its wild will with my physical interior. ”

“ We perceive we are in existence—and the Necessarian tells us, very wisely, that we are here of necessity! We perceive the varied creation around us replete with life, and plenished with the means of enjoyment, and the Necessarian wisely tells us, all comes from necessity! What an encrease to our wisdom, is this information! The world is taken from the back of the elephant, who stands upon the tortoise, and put upon the shoulders of Dame Necessity, its august and venerable mother, if Mr. Shelley is sufficient authority for this portion of the parentage! ”

“ If I gave myself to thee as often as thou wouldst have me, I should deprive myself of the sweet shelter I have of thee in this world, for a thousand bodies could not protect a loving soul from her desire. ”

“ Shelby, on the Mississippi river, October 20th, 1839.
Why do I stand so silently,
With folded arms and tearful eye?
Hour after hour thus I spend,
Immers’d in thoughts which know no end.
It was not thus in days gone by,
When heart and hands found full employ,
When earth’s attachments warm’d my breast,
And earth’s engagements shared my rest. ”