by Fanny Burney
CHAPTER LXXXV
With arms extended, and a commanding air, Elinor, having made signs tothe dismayed Harleigh not to move, awaited, where she stood, theterrified, but obedient Juliet.
'Avoid me not!' she cried, 'Ellis! why should you avoid me? I have givenyou back your plighted word; and the pride of Harleigh has saved himfrom all bonds. Why, then, should you fly?'
Juliet attempted not to make any answer.
'The conference, the last conference,' continued Elinor, 'which soardently I have demanded, is still unaccorded. Repeatedly I could havesurprized it, singly, from Harleigh; but--'
She stopt, coloured, looked indignant, yet ashamed, and then haughtilywent on: 'Imagine not my courage tarnished by cowardly apprehensions ofmisinterpretation,--suspicion,--censoriousness;... no! let the worldsneer at its pleasure! Its spleen will never keep pace with my contempt.But Harleigh!--I brave not the censure of Harleigh! even thoughprepared, and resolved, to quit him for evermore! And, with ideaspunctilious such as his of feminine delicacy, he might blame,perhaps,--should I seek him alone--'
She blushed more deeply, and, with extreme agitation, added, 'Harleigh,when we shall meet no more, will always honourably say, Her passion forme might be tinctured with madness, but its purity was without alloy!'
She now turned away, to hide a starting tear; but, soon resuming herusually lively manner, said, 'I have traced you, at last, together; andby means of our caustick, bilious fellow-traveller, Riley; whom Iencountered by accident; and who runs, snarling, yet curious, after hisfellow-creatures, working at making himself enemies, as if enmity were apleasing, or lucrative profession! From him I learnt, that he had justseen you,--and together!--near Salisbury. I discovered you, Ellis, twodays ago; but Harleigh, though I have been roving some time in yourvicinity, only this moment.'
A sudden shriek now broke from her, and Juliet, affrighted and lookingaround, perceived Harleigh pacing hastily away.
The shriek reached him, and he stopt.
'Fly, fly, to him,' she cried, 'Ellis; assure him, I have no presentpersonal project; none! I solemnly promise, none! But I have an opinionto gather from him, of which my ignorance burns, devours me, and willnot let me rest, alive nor dead!'
Juliet, distressed, irresolute, ventured not to move.
''Tis his duty,' continued Elinor, 'after his solemn declaration, toinitiate me into his motives for believing in a future state. I havebeen distracting my burthened senses over theological works; but my headis in no condition to comprehend them. They treat, also, of belief in afuture state, as of a thing not to be proved, but to be taken forgranted. Let him penetrate me with his own notions; or franklyacknowledge their insufficiency. But let him mark that they are indeedhis own! Let them be neither fanatical, illusory, nor traditional.'
Juliet was compelled to obey; but while she was repeating her message,Elinor descended the hill, and they all met at its foot.
'Harleigh,' she cried, 'fear me not! Do not imagine I shall again goover the same ground;--at least, not with the monotonous stupidity ofagain going over it in the same manner. Yet believe not my resolution tobe shaken! But I have some doubts, relative to your own principles andopinions, of which I demand a solution.'
She then seated herself upon the turf, and made Harleigh seat himselfbefore her, while Juliet remained by her side.
'Can you feign, Harleigh? Can you endure to act a part, in defiance ofyour nobler nature, merely to prolong my detested life? Do you join inthe popular cry against suicide, merely to arrest my impatient hand? Ifnot, initiate me, I beseech, in the series of pretended reasoning, bywhich honour, honesty, and understanding such as yours, have been dupedinto bigotry? How is it, explain! that you can have been worked upon tobelieve in an existence after death? Ah, Harleigh! could you, indeed,give so sublime a resting-place to my labouring ideas!--I would consentto enter the ecclesiastical court myself, to sing the recantation ofwhat you deem my errours. And then, Albert, I might learn,--with all mywretchedness!--to bear to live,--for then, I might seek and foster somehope in dying!'
'Dear Elinor!' cried Harleigh, gently, almost tenderly, 'let me send forsome divine!'
'How conscious is this retreat,' she cried, 'of the weakness of yourcause! Ah! why thus try to bewilder a poor forlorn traveller, who isdropping with fatigue upon her road? and to fret and goad her on, whenthe poor tortured wretch languishes to give up the journey altogether?Why not rather, more generously, more like yourself, aid her to attainrepose? to open her burning veins, and bid her pent up blood flow freelyto her relief? or kindly point the steel to her agonized heart, whoselast sigh would be ecstacy if it owed its liberation to your pityinghand! Oh Harleigh! what vain prejudice, what superstitious sophistry,robs me of the only solace that could soothe my parting breath?'
'What is it Elinor means?' cried Harleigh, alarmed, yet affecting tospeak lightly: 'Has she no compunction for the labour she causes myblood in thus perpetually accelerating its circulation.'
'Pardon me, dear Harleigh, I have inadvertently run from my purpose tomy wishes. To the point, then. Make me, if it be possible, conceive howyour reason has thus been played upon, and your discernment been setasleep. I have studied this matter abroad, with the ablest casuists, Ihave met with; and though I may not retain, or detail their reasoning,well enough to make a convert of any other, they have fixed for ever inmy own mind, a conviction that death and annihilation are one. Why doyou knit your brow?--And see how Ellis starts!--And why do you both lookat me as if I were mad? Mad? because I would rather crush misery thanendure it? Mad? because I would rather, at my own time, die the death ofreason, than by compulsion, and when least disposed, that of nature? Ofreason, that appreciates life but by enjoyment; not of nature, thatwould make misery linger, till malady or old age dissolve the worn outfabric. To indulge our little miserable fears and propensities, we giveflattering epithets to all our meannesses; for what is endurance ofworldly pain and affliction but folly? what patience, but insipidity?what suffering, but cowardice? Oh suicide! triumphant antidote to woe!straight forward, unerring route to rest, to repose! I call upon thyaid! I invoke--'
'Repose?--rest?' interrupted Harleigh, 'how earned? By deserting ourduties? By quitting our posts? By forsaking and wounding all by whom weare cherished?'
'One word, Harleigh, answers all that: Did we ask for our being? Whywas it given us if doomed to be wretched? To whom are we accountable forrenouncing a donation, made without our consent or knowledge? O, if everthat wretched thing called life has a noble moment, it must surely bethat of its voluntary sacrifice! lopping off, at a blow, thathydra-headed monster of evil upon evil, called time; bounding over theimps of superstition; dancing upon the pangs of disease; and boldly,hardily mocking the senseless legends, that would frighten us witheternity!--Eternity? to poor, little, frail, finite beings like us! OhAlbert! worldly considerations, monkish inventions, and superstitiousreveries set apart;--reason called forth, truth developed, probabilitiescanvassed,--say! is it not clear that death is an end to all? an abysseternal? a conclusion? Nature comes but for succession; though the prideof man would give her resurrection. Mouldering all together we go, toform new earth for burying our successors.'
'Horrible, Elinor, most horrible! yet if, indeed, it is your opinionthat you are doomed to sink to nothing; if your soul, in the full tideof its energies, and in the pride of intellect, seems to you a mereappendant to the body; if you believe it to be of the same fragilematerials; how can you wish to shorten the so short period ofconsciousness? to abridge the so brief moment of sensibility? Is it notalways time enough to think, feel, see, hear,--love and be loved nomore?'
'Yes! 'tis always too soon to lose happiness; but misery,--ahAlbert!--why should misery, when it can so easily be stilled, beendured?'
'Stilled, Elinor?--What mean you? By annihilation?--How an infidelassumes fortitude to wish for death, is my constant astonishment! Tobelieve in the eternal loss of all he holds, or knows, or feels; to bepersuaded that "this sensible, warm being" will
"melt, thaw, and resolveitself into a dew,"--and to believe that there all ends! Surely everyspecies of existence must be preferable to such an expectation from itscessation! Dust! literal dust!--Food for worms!--to be trodupon;--crushed;--dug up;--battered down;--is that our termination?That,--and nothing more?'
'Tis shocking, Albert, no doubt; shocking and disgusting. Yet whydisguise the fact? Reason, philosophy, analogy, all prove ourmaterialism. Even common observation, even daily experience, in viewingour natural end, where neither sickness nor accident impede, nor shortenits progress, prove it by superannuation; shew clearly that mind andbody, when they die the long death of nature, gradually declinetogether.'
'Were that double decay constant, Elinor, in its junction, you mightthence, perhaps, draw that inference; but does not the body wither ascompletely by decay, in the very prime, and pride, and bloom of youth,where the death is consumption, as in the most worn-out decrepitude ofage? Yet the capacity is often, even to the last minute, as perfect asin the vigour of health. Were all within, as well as all without,material, would not the blight to one involve, uniformly, the blight tothe other? How often, too, does age, even the oldest, escape anyprevious decay of intellect! There are records extant, of those who,after attaining their hundredth year, have been capable of bearingtestimony in trials; but are there any of those, who, at half that age,have preserved their external appearance? No. It is the body, therefore,not the soul, that, in a natural state, and free from the accelerationsof accident, seems first to degenerate. The grace of symmetry, the charmof expression, may last with our existence, and delight to its latestdate; but that which we understand exclusively, as personalperfections,--how soon is it over! Not only before the intellects areimpaired, but even, and not rarely, before they are arrived at theirfull completion. Can mind, then, and body be but one and the same thing,when they neither flourish nor wither together?'
'Ah, Harleigh! is it not your willing mind, that here frames itssentiments from its exaltation? Not your deeper understanding, thatdefines your future expectations from your rational belief?'
'No, Elinor; my belief in the immortality of the soul may bestrengthened, but it is not framed by my wishes. Let me, however, askyou a question in return. Your disbelief of the immortality of the soul,is founded on your inability to have it, visually, or orally,demonstrated: Let me, then, ask, can the nature, use, and destinationsof the soul, however darkly hidden from our analysing powers, be moreimpervious to our limited foresight, than the narrower, yet equally, tous, invisible, destiny of our days to come upon earth? But does any one,therefore, from not knowing its purposes, disbelieve that his life maybe lengthened? Yet which of us can divine what his fate will be fromyear to year? What his actions, from hour to hour? his thoughts, frommoment to moment?'
'Oh Harleigh! how fatally is that true! how little did I foresee, when Iso delighted in your society, that that very delight would but impel meto burn for the moment of bidding you an eternal farewell!'
Harleigh sighed; but with earnestness continued: 'We conceive the soulto influence, if not to direct our whole construction, yet we have nosensible proof of its being in any part of it: how, then, shall wedetermine that to be destroyed or departed, which we have never known tobe created? never seen to exist? O bow we down! for all is inexplicable!We can but say, the body is obvious in its perfection, and still obviousin its decay; the soul is always unsearchable! were we sure it were onlyour understanding, we might, perhaps, develop it; or only our feelings,we might catch it; but it is something indefinable, of which theconsciousness tells us not the qualities, nor the possession theattributes; and of which the end leaves no trace! We follow it not toits dissolution like the body; which, after what we call death, is stillas evident, as when our conception of what is soul were yet lent to it:if the soul, then, be equally material, say, is it still there also?though as unseen and hidden as when breath and motion were yetperceptible?'
'Body and soul, Albert, come together with existence, and together arenullified by death.'
'And are you, Elinor, aware whither such reasoning may lead? If the bodyinstead of being the tenement of the soul, is but one and the same withit;--how are you certain, if they are not sundered by death, that theydo not in death, though by means, and with effects to us unknown, stillexist together? That with the body, whether animated or inert, the soulmay not always be adherent? who shall assure you, who, at least, shalldemonstrate, that if the soul be but a part of the body, it may notthink, though no utterance can be given to its thoughts; and may notfeel, though all expression is at an end, and motion is no more? Whithermay such reasoning lead? to what strange suggestions may it not conductus? to what vain fantasies, what useless horrours? May we not apprehendthat the insects, the worms which are formed from the human frame, maypartake of and retain human consciousness? May we not imagine thosewretched reptiles, which creep from our remains, to be sensible of theirfallen state, and tortured by their degradation? to resent, as well asseek to elude the ill usage, the blows, the oppressions to which theyare exposed?--'
'Fie! Albert, fie!'
'Nay, what proof, if for proof you wait, have you to the contrary? Is ittheir writhing? their sensitive shrink from your touch? their agonizingefforts to save their miserable existence from your gripe?'
'Harleigh! Harleigh!'
'And this dust, Elinor, to which you settle that, finally, all will bemouldered or crumbled;--fear you not that its every particle maypossess some sensitive quality? When we cease to speak, to move, tobreathe, you assert the soul to be annihilated: But why? Is it onlybecause you lose sight of its operations? In chemistry are there notsundry substances which, by certain processes, become invisible, and aresought in vain by the spectator; but which, by other processes, areagain brought to view? And shall the chemist have this faculty toproduce, and to withdraw, from our sight, and the Creator of All bedenied any occult powers?'
'Nay, Albert, "how can we reason but from what we know?"--Will youcompare a fact which experiment can prove, which reason may discuss, andwhich the senses may witness, with a bare possibility? A vagueconjecture?'
'Is nothing, then, credible, Elinor, that is out of theprovince of demonstration? nothing probable, that surpasses ourunderstanding?--nothing sacred that is beyond our view? Are we soperfect in our knowledge, even of what we behold, or possess, as to drawsuch presumptuous conclusions, of the self-sufficiency and omnipotenceof our faculties, for judging what is every way out of our sight, orreach? Do we know one radical point of our existence, here, where "welive, and move, and have our being?" Do we comprehend, unequivocally,our immediate attributes and powers? Can we tell even how our hands obeyour will? how our desires suffice to guide our feet from place to place?to roll our eyes from object to object? If all were clear, save theexistence and the extinction of the soul, then, indeed, we mightpronounce all faith, but in self-evidence, to be folly!'
'Faith! Harleigh, faith? the very word scents of monkish subtleties!'Tis to faith, to that absurd idea of lulling to sleep our reason, ofsetting aside our senses, our observation, our knowledge; and giving ourignorant, unmeaning trust, and blind confidence to religious quacks;'tis to that, precisely that, you owe what you term our infidelity; for'tis that which has provoked the spirit of investigation, which hasshewn us the pusillanimity and imbecility of consigning the short periodin which we possess our poor fleeting existence, to other men's uses,deliberations, schemes, fancies, and ordinances. For what else can youcall submission to unproved assertions, and concurrence in unfoundedbelief?'
'And yet, this faith, Elinor, which, in religion, you renounce, despise,or defy, because in religion you would think, feel, and believe bydemonstration alone, you insensibly admit in nearly all things else!Have you it not in morals? Does society exist but by faith? Doesfriendship,--I will not name what is so open to controversy aslove,--but say! has friendship any other tie? has honour any other bondthan faith? We have no proofs, no demonstrations of worth that can reachthe regions of the heart: we judge but by
effects; we believe but byanalogies; we love, we esteem, we trust but by credulity, by faith! Forwhere is the mathematician who can calculate what may be pronounced ofthe mind, from what is seen in the countenance, or uttered by speech?yet is any one therefore so wretched, as not to feel any social reliancebeyond what he can mathematically demonstrate to be merited?'
'And to what but that, Albert, precisely that, do we owe being soperpetually duped and betrayed? to what but building upon false trust?upon appearance, and not certainty?'
'Certainty, Elinor! Where, and in what is certainty to be found? If youdisclaim belief in immortality upon faith, as insufficient to satisfyreason, what is the basis even of your disbelief? Is it not faith also?When you demand the proofs of immortality, let me demand, in return,what are your proofs of materialism? And, till you can bring todemonstration the operations of the soul while we live, presume not todecide upon its extinction when we die! Of the corporeal machine, on thecontrary, speak at pleasure; you have before you all your documents forratiocination and decision; but, life once over,--when you have placedthe limbs, closed the eyes, arranged the form,--can you arrange themind?--the soul?'
'Excite no doubts in me, Harleigh!--my creed is fixed.'
'When sleep overtakes us,' he continued, 'and all, to the beholder,looks the picture of death, save that the breath still heaves thebosom;--what is it that guards entire, uninjured, the mind? thefaculties? It is not our consciousness,--we have none! Where is the soulin that period? Gone it is not, for we are sensible to all that hadpreceded its suspension, the moment that we awake. Yet, in that state ofperiodical insensibility, what, but experience, could make those whoview us believe that we could ever rise, speak, move, or think again?How inert is the body! How helpless, how useless, how incapable? Do wesee who is near us? Do we hear who addresses us? Do we know when themost frightful crimes are committed by our sides? What, I demand, is ourconsciousness? We have not the most distant of any thing that passesaround us: yet we open our eyes--and all is known, all is familiaragain. We hear, we see, we feel, we understand!'
'Yes; but in that sleep, Harleigh, that mere mechanical repose of theanimal, we still breathe; we are capable, therefore, of being restoredto all our sensibilities, by a single touch, by a single start; 'tis buta separation that parts us from ourselves, as absence parts us from ourfriends. We yet live,--we yet, therefore, may meet again.'
'And why, when we live no longer, may we not also, Elinor, meet again?'
'Why?--Do you ask why?--Look round the old church-yards! See you notthere the dispersion of our poor mouldered beings? Is not every bone theprey,--or the disgust,--of every animal? How, when scattered, commixed,broken, battered, how shall they ever again be collected, united,arranged, covered and coloured so as to appear regenerated?'
'But what, Elinor, is the fragility, or the dispersion of the body, tothe solidity and the durability of the soul? Why are we to decide, thatto see ourselves again, and again to view each other, such as we seemhere, substance, or what we understand by it, is essential to ourre-union hereafter? Do we not meet, act, talk, move, think with oneanother in our dreams? What is it which, then, embodies our ideas? whichgives to our sight, in perfect form and likeness, those with whom weconverse? which makes us conceive that we move, act, speak, and look,ourselves, with the same gesture, mien, and voice as when awake?'
'Dreams? pho!--they are but the nocturnal vagaries of the imagination.'
'And what, Elinor, is imagination? You will not call it a part of yourbody?'
'No; but the blood which still circulates in our veins, Harleigh, givesimagination its power.'
'But does the blood circulate in the veins of our parents, of ourfriends? of our acquaintances? and of strangers whom we equally meet?yet we see them all; we converse with them all; we utter opinions; welisten to their answers. And how ably we sometimes argue! howcharacteristically those with whom we dispute reply! yet we do notimagine we guide them. We wait their opinions and decisions, in the sameuncertainty and suspense, that we await them in our waking intercourse.We have the same fears of ill fortune; the same horrour of ill usage;the same ardour for success; the same feelings of sorrow, of joy, ofhope, or of remorse, that animate or that torture us, in our dailyoccurrences. What new countries we visit! what strange sights we see!what delight, what anguish, what alarms, what pleasures, and what painswe experience! Yet in all this variety of incident, conversation,motion, feeling,--we seem, to those who look at us, but unintelligentand senseless, though still breathing clay.'
'Ay; but after all those scenes, we awake, Albert, we awake! But when dowe awake from death? Death, the same experience tells us, is sleepeternal!'
'But in that sleep, also, are there no dreams? Are you sure of that? If,in our common sleep, there still subsists an active principle, thatfeels, speaks, invents, and only by awaking finds that the mind alone,and not the body has been working;--how are you so sure that no suchactive principle subsists in that sleep which you call eternal? Who hastold you what passes where experience is at an end? Who has talked toyou of "that bourne whence no traveller returns?" With the cessation,indeed, of warmth; with the stillness of those pulses which beat fromcirculating blood, all seems to end; but seems it not also to end whenwe fall into apoplexies? when we faint away? when we appear to bedrowned? or when, by any means, life is casually suspended? Yet whenthose arts, that skill, of which even the success teaches not theprinciple, even the process discovers not the secret resources, drawback, by means intelligible and visible, but through causes indefinable,the fleeting breath to its corporeal habitation; animation instantlyreturns, and the soul, with all its powers, revives!'
'Ay, there, there, Albert, is the very point! If the soul were distinctfrom the body, why should not those who are recovered from drowning,suffocation, or other apparent death, be able to give some account ofwhat passed in those periods when they seemed to be no more? And who hasdone it? No one, Harleigh! not a single renovated being, has explainedaway the doubts to which those suspensions of animation give rise.'
'And has any one explained, Elinor, why, though sometimes we have suchwonders to relate of the scenes in which we have borne a part in ourdreams,--we open our eyes, at other times, with no consciousnesswhatever, that we have, any way existed from the moment of closing them?The wants of refreshment and recruit of our corporeal machine, we allfeel, and know; those of that part which is intellectual,--who is ableto calculate? What, except the powers, can be more distinct than theexercises of the mind and of the body? Yet, though we see not theworkings of what is intellectual; though they are known only by theireffects,--does the student by the midnight oil require less rest fromhis mental fatigues,--whether he take it or not,--than the ploughmanfrom his corporal labour? Is he not as wearied, as exhausted, after aday consigned to serious and unremitting study and reflection, as thelabourer who has spent it in digging, paving, hewing, and sawing? Yethis body has been perfectly at peace; has not moved, has not made thesmallest exertion.'
'And why, Harleigh? What is that, but because--'
'Hasten not, Elinor, thence, to your favourite conclusion, that soul andbody, if wearied or rested together, are, therefore, one and the samething: observation, and reflection, turned to other points of view, willshew you fresh reasons, and objects, every day, to disprove thatidentity: shew you, on one side, corporal force for supporting thebitterest grief of heart, with uninjured health; and, mental force, onthe other side, for bearing the acutest bodily disorders with unimpairedintellectual vigour. How often do the most fragile machines, enwrap thestoutest minds? how often do the halest frames, encircle the feeblestintellects? All proves that the connexion between mind and body, howeverintimate, is not blended;--though where its limits begin, or where theyend,--who can tell? But, who, also I repeat, can explain the phenomenon,by which, in the dead of the night, when we are completely insulated,and left in utter darkness, we firmly believe, nay, feel ourselves shoneupon by the broad beams of day; and surrounded by society, with which weact, th
ink, and reciprocate ideas?'
'Dreams, I must own, Albert, are strangely incomprehensible. How bodiescan seem to appear, and voices to be heard, where all around is emptyspace, it is not easy to conceive!'
'Let this insolvable, and acknowledged difficulty, then, Elinor, in acircumstance which, though daily recurring, remains inexplicable, checkany hardy decision of the cause why, after certain suspensions, the soulmay resume its functions to our evident knowledge; yet why we canneither ascertain its departure, its continuance, nor its return, afterothers. Oh Elinor! mock not, but revere the impenetrable mystery ofeternity! Ignorance is here our lot; presumption is our most uselessinfirmity. The mind and body after death must either be separate, ortogether. If together, as you assert, there is no proof attainable, thatthe soul partakes not of all the changes, all the dispersions, all thesufferings, and all the poor enjoyments, of what to us seems thelifeless, but which, in that case, is only the speechless carcase: ifseparate, as I believe,--whither goest thou, Oh soul! to what regions ofbliss?--or what abysses of woe?'
'Harleigh, you electrify me! you convulse the whole train of myprinciples, my systems, my long cherished conviction!'
'Say, rather, Elinor, of your faith!--your faith in infidelity! OhElinor! why call you not, rather, upon faith to aid your belief? Faith,and revealed religion! The limited state of our positive perceptions,grants us no means for comparison, for judgment, or even for thought,but by analogy: ask yourself, then, Elinor,--What is there, even inimmortality, more difficult of comprehension, than that indescribabledaily occurrence, which all mankind equally, though unreflectingexperience, of a total suspension of every species of living knowledge,of every faculty, of every sense,--called sleep? A suspension as bigwith matter for speculation and wonder, though its cessation is visibleto us, as that last sleep, of which we view not the period.'
'Albert!--should you shake my creed,--shall I be better contented? orbut yet more wretched?'
'Can Elinor think,--yet ask such a question? Can a prospect of a futurestate fail to offer a possibility of future happiness? Why wilfullyreject a consolation that you have no means to disprove? What know youof this soul which you settle to be so easily annihilated? By whatcriterion do you judge it? You have none! save a general consciousness,that a something there is within us that mocks all search, yet thatalways is uppermost; that anticipates good or evil; that outruns allevents; that feels the blow ere the flesh is touched; that expects thesound before the ear receives it; that, unseen, untraced, unknown,pervades, rules, animates all! that harbours thoughts, feelings, designswhich no human force can controul; which no mortal, unaided by our ownwill, can discover; and which no aid whatever, either of our own or ofothers, can bring forward to any possible manifestation!'
'Alas, Harleigh! You shew me nonentity itself to be as doubtful asimmortality! Of what wretched stuff are we composed! Which way must Inow turn,--
'Lost and bewildered in my fruitless search,'[13]--
which way must I turn to develop truth? to comprehend my own existence!Oh Albert!--you almost make me wish to rest my perturbed mind wherefools alone, I thought, found rest, or hypocrites have seemed to findit,--on Religion!'
[Footnote 13: Addison.]
'The feeling mind, dear Elinor, has no other serious serenity; no otherhold from the black, cheerless, petrifying expectation of nullity. If,then, even a wish of light break through your dark despondence, read,study the Evangelists!--and truth will blaze upon you, with the means tofind consolation.'
'Albert, I know now where I am!--You open to me possibilities thatoverwhelm me! My head seems bursting with fulness of struggling ideas!'
'Give them, Elinor, fair play, and they will soon, in return, give youtranquillity. Reflect only,--that that quality, that faculty, be itsnature, its durability, and its purpose what they may, which the worldat large agrees to call soul, has its universal comprehension from asomething that is felt; not that is proved! Yet who, and where is theAtheist, the Deist, the Infidel of any description, gifted with themeans to demonstrate, that, in quitting the body with the partingbreath, it is necessarily extinct? that it may not, on the contrary,still BE, when speech and motion are no more? when our flesh is mingledwith the dust, and our bones are dispersed by the winds? and BE, aswhile we yet exist, no part of our body, no single of our senses; never,while we seem to live, visible, yet never, when we seem to die,perishable? May it not, when, with its last sigh, it leaves the body,mingle with that vast expanse of air, which no instrument can completelyanalyse, and which our imperfect sight views but as empty space? May itnot mount to upper regions, and enjoy purified bliss? May not all air bepeopled with our departed friends, hovering around us, as sensible as weare unconscious? May not the uncumbered soul watch over those it loves?find again those it had lost? be received in the Heaven of Heavens,where it is destined,--not, Oh wretched idea!--to eternal sleep,inertness, annihilating dust;--but to life, to joy, to sweetestreminiscence, to tenderest re-unions, to grateful adoration tointelligence never ending! Oh! Elinor! keep for ever in mind, that if nomortal is gifted to prove that this is true,--neither is any oneempowered to prove that it is false!'
'Oh delicious idea!' cried Elinor, rising: 'Oh image of perfection! OhAlbert! conquering Albert! I hope,--I hope;--my soul may beimmortal!--Pray for me, Albert! Pray that I may dare offer up prayersfor myself!--Send me your Christian divine to guide me on my way; andmay your own heaven bless you, peerless Albert! for ever!--Adieu! adieu!adieu!'--
Fervently, then, clasping her hands, she sunk, with overpoweringfeelings, upon her knees.
Juliet came forward to support her; and Harleigh, deeply gratified,though full of commiseration, eagerly undertook the commission; and,echoing back her blessing, without daring to utter a word to Juliet,slowly quitted the spot.
