promise he made to La Roche and his daughter, on his former visit, was
recalled to his mind by the view of that range of mountains on a part of
which they had often looked together. There was a reproach, too, conveyed
along with the recollection, for his having failed to write to either for
several months past. The truth was, that indolence was the habit most
natural to him, from which he was not easily roused by the claims of
correspondence, either of his friends or of his enemies; when the latter
drew their pens in controversy, they were often unanswered as well as
the former. While he was hesitating about a visit to La Roche, which he
wished to make, but found the effort rather too much for him, he received
a letter from the old man, which had been forwarded to him from Paris,
where he had then fixed his residence. It contained a gentle complaint
of Mr. ——’s want of punctuality, but an assurance of continued gratitude
for his former good offices; and, as a friend whom the writer considered
interested in his family, it informed him of the approaching nuptials
of Mademoiselle La Roche with a young man, a relation of her own, and
formerly a pupil of her father’s, of the most amiable dispositions and
respectable character. Attached from their earliest years, they had
been separated by his joining one of the subsidiary regiments of the
canton, then in the service of a foreign power. In this situation he had
distinguished himself as much for courage and military skill as for the
other endowments which he had cultivated at home. The time of his service
was now expired, and they expected him to return in a few weeks, when the
old man hoped, as he expressed it in his letter, to join their hands and
see them happy before he died.
Our philosopher felt himself interested in this event; but he was not,
perhaps, altogether so happy in the tidings of Mademoiselle La Roche’s
marriage as her father supposed him. Not that he was ever a lover of the
lady’s; but he thought her one of the most amiable women he had seen,
and there was something in the idea of her being another’s forever that
struck him, he knew not why, like a disappointment. After some little
speculation on the matter, however, he could look on it as a thing
fitting if not quite agreeable, and determined on this visit to see his
old friend and his daughter happy.
On the last day of his journey, different accidents had retarded his
progress: he was benighted before he reached the quarter in which La
Roche resided. His guide, however, was well acquainted with the road,
and he found himself at last in view of the lake, which I have before
described, in the neighborhood of La Roche’s dwelling. A light gleamed on
the water, that seemed to proceed from the house; it moved slowly along
as he proceeded up the side of the lake, and at last he saw it glimmer
through the trees, and stop at some distance from the place where he then
was. He supposed it some piece of bridal merriment, and pushed on his
horse that he might be a spectator of the scene; but he was a good deal
shocked, on approaching the spot, to find it proceed from the torch of a
person clothed in the dress of an attendant on a funeral, and accompanied
by several others who, like him, seemed to have been employed in the
rites of sepulture.
On Mr. ——’s making inquiry who was the person they had been burying, one
of them, with an accent more mournful than is common to their profession,
answered,—
“Then you knew not Mademoiselle, sir? You never beheld a lovelier—”
“La Roche!” exclaimed he in reply.
“Alas! it was she indeed.”
The appearance of surprise and grief which his countenance assumed
attracted the notice of the peasant with whom he talked. He came
up closer to Mr. ——. “I perceive, sir, you were acquainted with
Mademoiselle La Roche.”
“Acquainted with her!—Good God!—when—how—where did she die? Where is her
father?”
“She died, sir, of heart-break, I believe. The young gentleman to whom
she was soon to have been married was killed in a duel by a French
officer, his intimate companion, to whom, before their quarrel, he had
often done the greatest favors. Her worthy father bears her death as he
has often told us a Christian should; he is even so composed as to be now
in his pulpit, ready to deliver a few exhortations to his parishioners,
as is the custom with us on such occasions. Follow me, sir, and you shall
hear him.”
He followed the man without answering.
The church was dimly lighted, except near the pulpit, where the venerable
La Roche was seated. His people were now lifting up their voices in a
psalm to that Being whom their pastor had taught them ever to bless and
to revere. La Roche sat, his figure bending gently forward, his eyes half
closed, lifted up in silent devotion. A lamp placed near him threw its
light strong on his head, and marked the shadowy lines of age across the
paleness of his brow, thinly covered with gray hairs.
The music ceased. La Roche sat for a moment, and nature wrung a few
tears from him. His people were loud in their grief: Mr. —— was not less
affected than they. La Roche arose.
“Father of mercies!” said he, “forgive these tears; assist thy servant
to lift up his soul to thee, to lift to thee the souls of thy people.
My friends, it is good so to do; at all seasons it is good; but in the
days of our distress, what a privilege it is! Well saith the sacred book,
‘Trust in the Lord; at all times trust in the Lord!’ When every other
support fails us, when the fountains of worldly comfort are dried up,
let us then seek those living waters which flow from the throne of God.
’Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being
that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man.
Human wisdom is here of little use; for, in proportion as it bestows
comfort, it represses feeling, without which we may cease to be hurt by
calamity, but we shall also cease to enjoy happiness. I will not bid
you be insensible, my friends. I cannot, if I would.” His tears flowed
afresh. “I feel too much myself, and I am not ashamed of my feelings; but
therefore may I the more willingly be heard; therefore have I prayed God
to give me strength to speak to you, to direct you to him, not with empty
words, but with these tears, not from speculation, but from experience,
that while you see me suffer you may know also my consolation. You behold
the mourner of his only child, the last earthly stay and blessing of
his declining years. Such a child too! It becomes not me to speak of
her virtues; yet it is but gratitude to mention them, because they were
exerted toward myself. Not many days ago you saw her young, beautiful,
virtuous, and happy. Ye who are parents will judge of my felicity then;
ye will judge of my affliction now. But I look toward him who struck me;
I see the hand of a father amidst the chastenings of my God. Oh! could I
make you feel what it is to pour out the heart, when it is pressed down
with many sorrows, to pour it out with confidence to him in whose hands
are life and death, on whose power awaits all that the first enjoys,
and in contemplation of whom disappears all that the last can inflict.
For we are not as those who die without hope; we know that our Redeemer
liveth,—that we shall live with him, with our friends, his servants, in
that blessed land where sorrow is unknown, and happiness is endless as it
is perfect. Go, then, mourn not for me; I have not lost my child; but a
little while, and we shall meet again, never to be separated. But ye are
also my children: would ye that I should not grieve without comfort? So
live as she lived, that, when your death cometh, it may be the death of
the righteous, and your latter end like his.”
Such was the exhortation of La Roche: his audience answered it with
their tears. The good old man had dried up his at the altar of the Lord:
his countenance had lost its sadness and assumed the glow of faith and
hope. Mr. —— followed him into his house. The inspiration of the pulpit
was past; at sight of him, the scenes they had last met in rushed again
on his mind; La Roche threw his arms around his neck, and watered it
with his tears. The other was equally affected. They went together,
in silence, into the parlor, where the evening service was wont to be
performed. The curtains of the organ were open; La Roche started back at
the sight.
“Oh! my friend!” said he, and his tears burst forth again.
Mr. —— had now recollected himself; he stepped forward, and drew the
curtains close. The old man wiped off his tears, and taking his friend’s
hand, “You see my weakness,” said he, “’tis the weakness of humanity; but
my comfort is not therefore lost.”
“I heard you,” said the other, “in the pulpit; I rejoice that such
consolation is yours.”
“It is, my friend,” said he; “and I trust I shall ever hold it fast. If
there are any who doubt our faith, let them think of what importance
religion is to calamity, and forbear to weaken its force. If they
cannot restore our happiness, let them not take away the solace of our
affliction.”
Mr. ——’s heart was smitten, and I have heard him, long after, confess
that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to
weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical discovery and
the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure
of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH.
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
What is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in
different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded as the
consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and
on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be
deprecated. Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party (_cæna_), and
the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the
mode of death which, in _his_ opinion, might seem the most eligible,
replied, “That which should be most sudden.” On the other hand, the
divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications,
as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate
before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors. “From
lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle
and murder, and from sudden death,—_Good Lord, deliver us_.” Sudden death
is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is
the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated
as the first of blessings. In that difference, most readers will see
little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But
there I hesitate. The Christian Church may be right in its estimate of
sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also
be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life,—as that which
_seems_ most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects,
and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however,
occur to me any direct Scriptural warrant for this earnest petition
of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human
infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, however _that_ may be, two
remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which
else _may_ wander, and _has_ wandered, into an uncharitable superstition.
The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror
of a sudden death (I mean the objective horror to him who contemplates
such a death, not the subjective horror to him who suffers it), from the
false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by
an accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance,
by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is
falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were
suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But _that_ is unphilosophic. The man
was, or he was not, _habitually_ a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication
were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing
special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became
his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one
of his _habitual_ transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the
more a transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has
caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man
have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there
would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance,—a feature of
presumption and irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself
drawing near to the presence of God. But this is no part of the case
supposed. And the only new element in the man’s act is not any element of
extra immorality, but simply of extra misfortune.
The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word _sudden_. And
it is a strong illustration of the duty which forever calls us to the
stern valuation of words, that very possibly Cæsar and the Christian
Church do not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any
difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral
temper appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different
cases. Both contemplate a violent death, a Βιαθανατος—death that is
Βιαιος: but the difference is that the Roman by the word “sudden” means
an _unlingering_ death: whereas the Christian Litany by “sudden” means
a death _without warning_, consequently without any available summons
to religious preparation. The poor mutineer, who kneels down to gather
into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades,
dies by a most sudden death in Cæsar’s sense: one shock, one mighty
spasm, one (possibly _not_ one) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense
of the Litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence, originally,
his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence and
its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his
fate,—having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation.
Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety in
the modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable,—a question
which, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously
answered according to each man’s variety of temperament,—certainly, upon
one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all
agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms
it is the most freezing to human sensibilities,—namely, where it
surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer)
some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. Any effort, by which
such an evasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger
which it affronts. Even _that_, even the sickening necessity for hurrying
in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, and
where the dreadful knell of _too_ late is already sounding in the ears
by anticipation,—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation
in one particular case, namely, where the agonizing appeal is made not
exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience
on behalf of another life besides your own, accidentally cast upon _your_
protection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem
comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to
fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the
final interests of another,—of a fellow-creature shuddering between the
gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would
mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody
calamity. The man is called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at
the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as
a murderer. He had but the twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that
effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow
of a chance, small or great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonable
_lâcheté_? The effort _might_ have been without hope; but to have risen
to the level of that effort would have rescued him, though not from
dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his duties.
The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer lurking far down
in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned
to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such
a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men’s natures,—muttering
under ground in one world, to be realized perhaps in some other. Upon
the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at
intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to
childhood, of meeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in
hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him,
publishes the secret frailty of human nature,—reveals its deep-seated
Pariah falsehood to itself,—records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not
one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man,
that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the
original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait
offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again a
snare is made ready for leading him into captivity to a luxury of ruin;
again, as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls from innocence; once
again, by infinite iteration, the ancient Earth groans to God, through
her secret caves, over the weakness of her child; “Nature, from her seat,
sighing through all her works,” again “gives signs of woe that all is
lost”; and again the countersign is repeated to the sorrowing heavens
of the endless rebellion against God. Many people think that one man,
the patriarch of our race, could not in his single person execute this
rebellion for all his race. Perhaps they are wrong. But, even if not,
perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the
original act. Our English rite of Confirmation, by which, in years of
awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in
our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! The little postern
gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a
time within the glory of God’s countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds
as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial
pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for God,
by personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says in effect, “Lo!
I rebaptize myself; and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now I
swear for myself.” Even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict
of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but
darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of
our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginal fall.
As I drew near to the Manchester post-office, I found that it was
considerably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important
for me to be in Westmoreland by the morning, I saw by the huge saucer
eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses,
that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was; but by some
luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even yet ready
to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still
lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in
imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the
shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human
race, and signalizing to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with
his best compliments, that he has planted his throne forever upon that
virgin soil: henceforward claiming the _jus dominii_ to the top of the
atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre
of the earth below it; so that all people found after this warning,
either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or squatting on the
soil, will be treated as trespassers,—that is, decapitated by their very
faithful and obedient servant, the owner of the said bunting. Possibly
my cloak might not have been respected, and the _jus gentium_ might have
been cruelly violated in my person,—for in the dark, people commit deeds
of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality,—but it so happened that,
on this night, there was no other outside passenger; and the crime,
which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. By
the way, I may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial
accuracy is essential to the effect of my narrative, that there was no
other person of any description whatever about the mail—the guard, the
coachman, and myself being allowed for—except only one,—a horrid creature
of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom young Oxford called
sometimes “Trojans,” in opposition to our Grecian selves, and sometimes
“vermin.” A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good-breeding, will
never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he has reason
to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of Stamboul,
he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature running
between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is always careful,
out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the odious
name, and to call the wretch “that other creature,” as though all
animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as
Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another
and alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an English
Effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any
son of Othman, beg my reader’s pardon for having mentioned an insider
by his gross natural name. I shall do so no more; and, if I should have
occasion to glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him “that
other creature.” Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion
will arise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the
Reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, “Was this other
creature present?” He was _not_; or more correctly, perhaps, _it_ was
not. We dropped the creature—or the creature, by natural imbecility,
dropped itself—within the first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter
case, I wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I
die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will
never be known whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor.
But this other creature, in the case of dropping out of the coach, will
enjoy a coroner’s inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For
I insist upon it, that the verdict of a coroner’s jury makes the best
of epitaphs. It is brief, so that the public all find time to read; it
is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if any _can_ survive such a
loss) remember it without fatigue; it is upon oath, so that rascals and
Dr. Johnsons cannot pick holes in it. “Died through the visitation of
intense stupidity, by impinging on a moonlight night against the off-hind
wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodand upon the said wheel—twopence.” What a
simple lapidary inscription! Nobody much in the wrong but an off-wheel;
and with few acquaintances; and if it were but rendered into choice
Latin, though there would be a little bother in finding a Ciceronian
word for “off-wheel,” Marcellus himself, that great master of sepulchral
eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call this little remark _moral_
is, from the compensation it points out. Here, by the supposition, is
that other creature on the one side, the beast of the world; and he
(or it) gets an epitaph. You and I, on the contrary, the pride of our
friends, get none.
But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having mounted the box, I took
a small quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred
and fifty miles,—namely, from a point seventy miles beyond London,
upon a simple breakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing
extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of
my assessor on the box, the coachman. And in _that_ there was nothing
extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my
attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of size,
and that he had but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by Virgil as—
“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum.”