unutterable offence. For thrice ten thousand years the sinner roams
estranged from bliss, taking all mortal shapes, wearing with tired feet
all the sad ways of life. AEther sweeps him out to Ocean, Ocean casts him
naked on the shores of Earth, Earth hurls him upward to the flames of
Helios, and he, relentless, spurns the victim back to AEther, that the
dread cycle may begin anew. But to be for ever driven in this majestic
whirl of change, to receive the chastisement of all elements and survive
unbroken for a new revolution of the wheel, this is but an assurance of
the very pride of life, it is the charter of an invincible manhood. The
doom which in truth befits the unutterable sin is rather the blank pain
without accident or period, without point or salience to draw from
stunned nature her last energies of resentment. It is well for me that
this misery is short-lived, and that either by thinking on that ideal
love I know the miracle of the twenty-ninth sonnet, or, struggling with
instant effort out of the toils, try to see myself as I appear to
others, one who should scorn to sit in thirst when there are wells yet
for the seeking.
It is a strange life to lead in this pleasureful world; and if when it
is over I were condemned to live again, coming like Er the Armenian to
that meadow where the lots are thrown down for each to choose his own, I
am already decided what character I should elect to play. I should
neither cast myself for a protagonist's part nor again for that of a
dumb actor in those backgrounds I know too well; but just for a plain
manly character, strong to face all fortunes and rich in troops of
friends. There should be no more evasion or dreary wrestling of mind
with body; but life should move to a restrained harmony, and no elusive
wind should carry half the music away.
As for what remains of this present dispensation, I shall know how to
endure, trusting that the years may fade finely, like the figures in an
old tapestry, and that the end may come to me as to the old gentleman in
Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Old House. And I have this
advantage over other men, that while they have the whole cornucopia to
lose, I can but be deprived of the dregs in its pointed end. For in what
can there be further punishment? On others, men of happy pasts, dismay
may fall as the ways are darkened before them. But surely I shall be of
good cheer as I come into the land of the fierce old robber Age; for,
stripped long since by a more subtle and insatiate despoiler, I shall
possess nothing of worth to draw his covetousness upon me. So many joys
did my very youth renounce; so many pleasures the Harpies swept from my
place at the spread board of life; such gags and fetters held me while
others danced and sang, that I was the sad familiar of evil fortune
before my companions were acquainted with her name. That leaden weight
which brings others low, by a nice adjustment of the scales shall raise
me for the first time to their equality. And then, as one experienced in
bereavements, of themselves they may seek my company; and I, so long the
useless and estranged, may become at the close their helpful counsellor.
If only that might be; if only upon the verge of night I might redeem by
usefulness my lost unserviceable day. Then this grey life, so long sole
and intrinsical to itself, should glow at last with some reflection of
the sunset; once more I should know young ardours imagined lost and
devotions miraculously born again.
You will still encounter me now and then, moving absently through the
crowd, or wandering in some green place, as in the garden of the
Luxembourg Vauvenargues used to meet the wounded of the great battle,
keeping apart in the narrower walks, and leaving the broad central ways
for lighter feet than theirs. He often longed to have speech with them;
but always they turned away, with the proud self-sufficiency of the
disillusioned. Perhaps if he had succeeded he would have found that to
some of them life had its consolations not unlike mine, and that they
could still regard it as something more than a friendly process of
detachment. But it is not our habit to expand; we are ever held back by
the occult pride which the same soldier-philosopher has assigned to one
of his imaginary characters, "cette fierte tendre d'une ame timide, qui
ne veut avouer ni sa defaite, ni ses esperances, ni la vanite de ses
voeux."
End of Project Gutenberg's Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith