Julius to Raphael. October.
You are gone, Raphael--and the beauty of nature departs: the sere and
yellow leaves fall from the trees, while a thick autumn fog hangs
suspended like a bier over the lifeless fields. Solitary, I wander
through the melancholy country. I call aloud your name, and am irritated
that my Raphael does not answer me.
I had received your last embrace. The mournful sound of the carriage
wheels that bore you away had at length died upon my ear. In happier
moments I had just succeeded in raising a tumulus over the joys of the
past, but now again you stand up before me, as your departed spirit, in
these regions, and you accompany me to each favorite haunt and pleasant
walk. These rocks I have climbed by your side: by your side have my eyes
wandered over this immense landscape. In the dark sanctuary of this
beech-grove we first conceived the bold ideal of our friendship. It was
here that we unfolded the genealogical tree of the soul, and that we
found that Julius was so closely related to Raphael. Not a spring, not a
thicket, or a hill exists in this region where some memory of departed
happiness does not come to destroy my repose. All things combine to
prevent my recovery. Wherever I go, I repeat the painful scene of our
separation.
What have you done to me, Raphael? What am I become? Man of dangerous
power! would that I had never known or never lost you! Hasten back; come
on the wings of friendship, or the tender plant, your nursling, shall
have perished. How could you, endowed with such tender feelings, venture
to leave the work you had begun, but still so incomplete. The
foundations that your proud wisdom tried to establish in my brain and
heart are tottering; all the splendid palaces which you erected are
crumbling, and the worm crushed to earth is writhing under the ruins.
Happy, heavenly time, when I groped through life, with bandaged eyes,
like a drunken man,--when all my knowledge and my wishes were confined
to the narrow horizon of my childhood's teachings! Blessed time, when
a cheerful sunset raised no higher aspiration in my soul than the wish
of a fine day on the morrow; when nothing reminded me of the world save
the newspaper; nothing spoke of eternity save the passing bell; only
ghost-stories brought to mind the thought of death and judgment; when I
trembled at the thought of the devil, and was proportionately drawn to
the Godhead! I felt and was happy. Raphael has taught me to think I am
on the way to regret that I was ever created.
Creation? No, that is only a sound lacking all meaning, which my reason
cannot receive. There was a time when I knew nothing, when no one knew
me: accordingly, it is usual to say, I was not. That time is past:
therefore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the
millions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now known, and yet men
are wont to say, they are. On what do we found the right to grant the
beginning and to deny the end? It is assumed that the cessation of
thinking beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite
Goodness cone first into being at the creation of the world? If there
was a period when there were no spirits, Infinite Goodness must have been
imperative for a whole eternity. If the fabric of the universe is a
perfection of the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the
creation of the world. But an assumption like this contradicts the idea
of perfect goodness, therefore there is no creation. To what have I
arrived, Raphael? Terrible fallacy of my conclusions! I give up the
Creator as soon as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if
I suffice without the Creator?
You have robbed me of the thought that gave me peace. You have taught me
to despise where I prayed before. A thousand things were venerable in my
sight till your dismal wisdom stripped off the veil from them. I saw a
crowd of people streaming to church, I heard their enthusiastic devotion
poured forth in a common act of prayer and praise; twice did I stand
beside a deathbed, and saw--wonderful power of religion!--the hope of
heaven triumphant over the terror of annihilation, and the serene light
of joy beaming from the eyes of those departing.
"Surely that doctrine must be divine," I exclaimed, "which is
acknowledged by the best among men, which triumphs and comforts so
wondrously!" Your cold-blooded wisdom extinguished my enthusiasm. You
affirmed that an equal number of devotees streamed formerly round the
Irmensaeule and to Jupiter's temple; an equal number of votaries, with
like exultation, ascended the stake kindled in honor of Brahma. "Can the
very feeling," you added, "which you found so detestable in heathenism
prove the truth of your doctrine?"
You proceeded to say: "Trust nothing but your own reason. There is
nothing holy, save truth." I have obeyed you: I have sacrificed all my
opinions, I have set fire to all my ships when I landed on this island,
and I have destroyed all my hopes of return. Never can I become
reconciled to a doctrine which I joyfully welcomed once. My reason is
now all to me--my only warrant for God, virtue, and immortality. Woe to
me if I catch this, my only witness, in a contradiction! if my esteem for
its conclusions diminishes! if a broken vessel in my brain diverts its
action! My happiness is henceforth intrusted to the harmonious action of
my sensorium: woe to me if the strings of this instrument give a false
note in the critical moments of my life--if my convictions vary with my
pulsations!