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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9231-0.txt b/9231-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffd19fc --- /dev/null +++ b/9231-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1135 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Earth’s Holocaust, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Earth’s Holocaust + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9231] +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH’S HOLOCAUST *** + + + + +Earth’s Holocaust + +by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a +matter of little or no moment—this wide world had become so +overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the +inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. +The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance companies, +and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, was one of +the broadest prairies of the West, where no human habitation would be +endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblage of spectators +might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights of this +kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire +might reveal some profundity of moral truth heretofore hidden in mist +or darkness, I made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At +my arrival, although the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet +comparatively small, the torch had already been applied. Amid that +boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening, like a far off star alone +in the firmament, there was merely visible one tremulous gleam, whence +none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. +With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers, women holding +up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering +baggage-wagons, and other vehicles, great and small, and from far and +near, laden with articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be +burned. + +“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a +bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the +affair from beginning to end. + +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or +thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He struck me +immediately as having weighed for himself the true value of life and +its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little personal interest in +whatever judgment the world might form of them. Before answering my +question, he looked me in the face by the kindling light of the fire. + +“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to +the purpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last +month’s magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some +antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.” + +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the +bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s +office,—the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of +illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like lines of +light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, garters, +and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble as it might +appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast significance, +and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious of moral or +material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with +this confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at +once, were innumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all +the European sovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of +Honor, the ribbons of which were entangled with those of the ancient +order of St. Louis. There, too, were the medals of our own Society of +Cincinnati, by means of which, as history tells us, an order of +hereditary knights came near being constituted out of the king quellers +of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents of nobility of +German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the +worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the +bran-new parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from +the fair hand of Victoria. + +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of +flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly +distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a joyous +shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the welkin +echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long ages, over +creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual infirmities, who had +dared to assume the privileges due only to Heaven’s better workmanship. +But now there rushed towards the blazing heap a gray-haired man, of +stately presence, wearing a coat, from the breast of which a star, or +other badge of rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He had +not the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was +the demeanor, the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had +been born to the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt +it questioned till that moment. + +“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his eyes +with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of +stateliness,—“people, what have you done? This fire is consuming all +that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have prevented +your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged orders, were those +who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous spirit; the gentle +and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the more refined and +delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off the poet, the +painter, the sculptor,—all the beautiful arts; for we were their +patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they flourish. In +abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society loses not only +its grace, but its steadfastness—” + +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, +sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the +appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of +despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the crowd, +glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance. + +“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same +fire!” shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. “And +henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment as his +warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength of arm, +well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have wit, +wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do for him +what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope for place +and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his ancestors. +That nonsense is done away.” + +“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low +voice, however, “if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at all +events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life.” + +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this +time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came +another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of +royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. +All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best, +fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise it +in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown +stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had +these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled +robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in +among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the +great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown +jewels of England glowing and flashing in the midst of the fire. Some +of them had been delivered down from the time of the Saxon princes; +others were purchased with vast revenues, or perchance ravished from +the dead brows of the native potentates of Hindustan; and the whole now +blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had fallen in that spot and +been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the ruined monarchy had +no reflection save in those inestimable precious stones. But enough on +this subject. It were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of +Austria’s mantle was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars +of the French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to +distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I +noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar +of Russia’s sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames. + +“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,” observed my +new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a royal +wardrobe. “Let us get to windward and see what they are doing on the +other side of the bonfire.” + +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the +arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,—as the votaries of +temperance call themselves nowadays,—accompanied by thousands of the +Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at their +head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being nothing +less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the world, which +they rolled before them across the prairie. + +“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge of +the fire, “one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us stand +off and see Satan deal with his own liquor.” + +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the +flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld +them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to set +the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the whole +world’s stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of kindling a +frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of yore, soared +upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind. It was the +aggregate of that fierce fire which would otherwise have scorched the +hearts of millions. Meantime numberless bottles of precious wine were +flung into the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, +and grew, like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it +quaffed. Never again will the insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so +pampered. Here were the treasures of famous bon vivants,—liquors that +had been tossed on ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in +the recesses of the earth,—the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of +whatever vineyards were most delicate,—the entire vintage of Tokay,—all +mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, +and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose in +a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the firmament +and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude gave a shout +as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance from the curse +of ages. + +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be +gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. While +the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations from +several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty shoes; +and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where the fire is +burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and boldly. + +“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that we can +never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and +perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold winds of +this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him in exchange +for the solace that you take away? How are old friends to sit together +by the fireside without a cheerful glass between them? A plague upon +your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold world, a selfish world, a +low world, not worth an honest fellow’s living in, now that good +fellowship is gone forever!” + +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, +preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating the +forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had dwindled +away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul to +countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to sip. +Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had observed +him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof brandy that +fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. + +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the zeal +of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with all the +boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came the planters +of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These, being cast upon +the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of a mountain, and +incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance that methought we +should never draw pure breath again. The present sacrifice seemed to +startle the lovers of the weed more than any that they had hitherto +witnessed. + +“Well, they’ve put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman, flinging it +into the flames in a pet. “What is this world coming to? Everything +rich and racy—all the spice of life—is to be condemned as useless. Now +that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical reformers +would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!” + +“Be patient,” responded a stanch conservative; “it will come to that in +the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.” + +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to +consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In +many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor fellow +threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit or +insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last season’s +bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and much other +half-worn milliner’s ware, all of which proved even more evanescent in +the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers of both +sexes—discarded maids or bachelors and couples mutually weary of one +another—tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets. A +hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of office, threw +in his teeth, which happened to be false ones. The Rev. Sydney +Smith—having voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose—came up +to the bonfire with a bitter grin and threw in certain repudiated +bonds, fortified though they were with the broad seal of a sovereign +state. A little boy of five years old, in the premature manliness of +the present epoch, threw in his playthings; a college graduate, his +diploma; an apothecary, ruined by the spread of homeopathy, his whole +stock of drugs and medicines; a physician, his library; a parson, his +old sermons; and a fine gentleman of the old school, his code of +manners, which he had formerly written down for the benefit of the next +generation. A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her +dead husband’s miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would +willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but could +find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American author, whose +works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and paper into the +bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging occupation. It +somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies, highly respectable +in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and petticoats into the +flames, and assume the garb, together with the manners, duties, +offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. + +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my attention +being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half-delirious girl, who, +exclaiming that she was the most worthless thing alive or dead, +attempted to cast herself into the fire amid all that wrecked and +broken trumpery of the world. A good man, however, ran to her rescue. + +“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew her back from the fierce +embrace of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and abide Heaven’s will. +So long as you possess a living soul, all may be restored to its first +freshness. These things of matter and creations of human fantasy are +fit for nothing but to be burned when once they have had their day; but +your day is eternity!” + +“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk +down into deep despondency, “yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of +it!” + +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and +munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the exception +of the world’s stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of +disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This intelligence +seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The hopeful philanthropist +esteemed it a token that the millennium was already come; while persons +of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed of bulldogs, +prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity, +and magnanimity of the race would disappear,—these qualities, as they +affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted +themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war +was impracticable for any length of time together. + +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long been +the voice of battle,—the artillery of the Armada, the battering trains +of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and Wellington,—were +trundled into the midst of the fire. By the continual addition of dry +combustibles, it had now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron +could withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how these terrible +instruments of slaughter melted away like playthings of wax. Then the +armies of the earth wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their +military music playing triumphant marches,—and flung in their muskets +and swords. The standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at +their banners, all tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the +names of victorious fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the +breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched them upward in +its rush towards the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was +left without a single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old +king’s arms and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in +some of our State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the +trumpets brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of +universal and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no +longer to be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the +contention of the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and +that beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, and +caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at the +horror and absurdity of war. + +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately old +commander,—by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he might +have been one of Napoleon’s famous marshals,—who, with the rest of the +world’s soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had been familiar +to his right hand for half a century. + +“Ay! ay!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they please; but, in the +end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for +the armorers and cannon-founders.” + +“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine that the +human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness as +to weld another sword or cast another cannon?” + +“There will be no need,” observed, with a sneer, one who neither felt +benevolence nor had faith in it. “When Cain wished to slay his brother, +he was at no loss for a weapon.” + +“We shall see,” replied the veteran commander. “If I am mistaken, so +much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize +about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper than these +honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all the petty +disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law court for the +settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field is the only court +where such suits can be tried.” + +“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just +such a tribunal as is requisite.” + +“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as he limped +away. + +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto +been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of society +than the warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body +of reformers had travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery +by which the different nations were accustomed to inflict the +punishment of death. A shudder passed through the multitude as these +ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the flames seemed at first +to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous contrivance of each +in a full blaze of light, which of itself was sufficient to convince +mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old implements +of cruelty; those horrible monsters of mechanism; those inventions +which it seemed to demand something worse than man’s natural heart to +contrive, and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, +the subject of terror-stricken legend,—were now brought forth to view. +Headsmen’s axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and +a vast collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian +victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of the +guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had borne +it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris. But the +loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of the +triumph of the earth’s redemption, when the gallows made its +appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and, +putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. + +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner should +thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by which he +himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their death; but it +deserved special note that men of a far different sphere—even of that +consecrated class in whose guardianship the world is apt to trust its +benevolence—were found to take the hangman’s view of the question. + +“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a +Heaven-ordained instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it +up in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and +desolation!” + +“Onward! onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into the flames with +the accursed instrument of man’s bloody policy! How can human law +inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the +gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the +world will be redeemed from its greatest error.” + +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent their +assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the centre of +the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was beheld, +first black, then a red coal, then ashes. + +“That was well done!” exclaimed I. + +“Yes, it was well done,” replied, but with less enthusiasm than I +expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,—“well +done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however, is +an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition between +the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection which +perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the full +circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment should now +be tried.” + +“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent leader +in this triumph. “Let the heart have its voice here as well as the +intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind always +do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any given period, it +has attained the perception of; and surely that thing cannot be wrong +nor wrongly timed.” + +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether the +good people around the bonfire were really growing more enlightened +every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the full length of +which I was hardly prepared to keep them company. For instance, some +threw their marriage certificates into the flames, and declared +themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and more comprehensive +union than that which had subsisted from the birth of time under the +form of the connubial tie. Others hastened to the vaults of banks and +to the coffers of the rich—all of which were opened to the first comer +on this fated occasion—and brought entire bales of paper-money to +enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its intensity. +Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, +was to be the golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the +bankers and speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who +had reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly +fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and ledgers, +the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other evidences +of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat larger number +satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of any uncomfortable +recollection of their own indebtment. There was then a cry that the +period was arrived when the title-deeds of landed property should be +given to the flames, and the whole soil of the earth revert to the +public, from whom it had been wrongfully abstracted and most unequally +distributed among individuals. Another party demanded that all written +constitutions, set forms of government, legislative acts, +statute-books, and everything else on which human invention had +endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once be destroyed, +leaving the consummated world as free as the man first created. + +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these propositions +is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters were in progress +that concerned my sympathies more nearly. + +“See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a fellow, who did +not seem to be a lover of literature. “Now we shall have a glorious +blaze!” + +“That’s just the thing!” said a modern philosopher. “Now we shall get +rid of the weight of dead men’s thought, which has hitherto pressed so +heavily on the living intellect that it has been incompetent to any +effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! +Now you are enlightening the world indeed!” + +“But what is to become of the trade?” cried a frantic bookseller. + +“O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise,” coolly +observed an author. “It will be a noble funeral-pile!” + +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of progress +so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever +dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the +earth to be any longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the +literary line. Accordingly a thorough and searching investigation had +swept the booksellers’ shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private +libraries, and even the little book-shelf by the country fireside, and +had brought the world’s entire mass of printed paper, bound or in +sheets, to swell the already mountain bulk of our illustrious bonfire. +Thick, heavy folios, containing the labors of lexicographers, +commentators, and encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling among the +embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. +The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred +volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of +sparkles and little jets of flame; while the current literature of the +same nation burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the +visages of the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of +party-colored fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of +brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel, generally +exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s works, in +particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal, +which promised to endure longer than almost any other material of the +pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor +that men shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor +even when the works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he +cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous +heap. It is my belief that he is still blazing as fervidly as ever. + +“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he +might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.” + +“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, or +at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be +expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is, +that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps at the +sun or stars.” + +“If they can reach so high,” said I; “but that task requires a giant, +who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. It is not +every one that can steal the fire from heaven like Prometheus; but, +when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths were kindled by it.” + +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion between +the physical mass of any given author and the property of brilliant and +long-continued combustion. For instance, there was not a quarto volume +of the last century—nor, indeed, of the present—that could compete in +that particular with a child’s little gilt-covered book, containing +_Mother Goose’s Melodies_. _The Life and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted +the biography of Marlborough. An epic, indeed a dozen of them, was +converted to white ashes before the single sheet of an old ballad was +half consumed. In more than one case, too, when volumes of applauded +verse proved incapable of anything better than a stifling smoke, an +unregarded ditty of some nameless bard—perchance in the corner of a +newspaper—soared up among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their +own. Speaking of the properties of flame, methought Shelley’s poetry +emitted a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, +contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of +black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As +for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. + +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American +authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of +moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to +indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not +perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content myself +with observing that it was not invariably the writer most frequent in +the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the bonfire. +I especially remember that a great deal of excellent inflammability was +exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to +speak the truth, there were certain portions that hissed and spluttered +in a very disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in +reference to several writers, native as well as foreign. Their books, +though of highly respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze +or even smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away +in a manner that proved them to be ice. + +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be +confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in vain. +Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action of the +heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they +contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the evening. + +“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking gentleman +in green spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing +to live for any longer. The business of my life is snatched from me. +Not a volume to be had for love or money!” + +“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm,—one of +those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are +covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; +and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see +what is to become of the poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for +him?” + +“My dear sir,” said I to the desperate bookworm, “is not nature better +than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system of +philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past +observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of good +cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before us; and, +if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal truth.” + +“O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!” reiterated the +forlorn bookworm. “My only reality was a bound volume; and now they +will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!” + +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now +descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets +from the press of the New World. These likewise were consumed in the +twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the first time since the +days of Cadmus, free from the plague of letters,—an enviable field for +the authors of the next generation. + +“Well, and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I, somewhat +anxiously. “Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap +boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform to +any farther point.” + +“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer. “Believe +me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the addition of +fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a willing hand thus +far.” + +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a little +time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement were +considering what should be done next. In the interval, a philosopher +threw his theory into the flames,—a sacrifice which, by those who knew +how to estimate it, was pronounced the most remarkable that had yet +been made. The combustion, however, was by no means brilliant. Some +indefatigable people, scorning to take a moment’s ease, now employed +themselves in collecting all the withered leaves and fallen boughs of +the forest, and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater height than +ever. But this was mere by-play. + +“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion. + +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space +around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, +mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems with +which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great act of faith. +Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast upon the heap with +as little remorse as if the reverence of centuries passing in long +array beneath the lofty towers had not looked up to them as the holiest +of symbols. The font in which infants were consecrated to God, the +sacramental vessels whence piety received the hallowed draught, were +given to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart +to see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble +communion-tables and undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having +been torn from the meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices +might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that +their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure +of St. Peter’s had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible +sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of religion, +and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew their +deep significance. + +“All is well,” said I, cheerfully. “The wood-paths shall be the aisles +of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. What needs +an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers? Our faith can +well afford to lose all the drapery that even the holiest men have +thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in its simplicity.” + +“True,” said my companion; “but will they pause here?” + +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general +destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood apart +from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense, was at +its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,—angel or fiend, +double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting both +characters,—at first shaking down only the old and rotten shapes of +things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand upon the main +pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral and spiritual +state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened to define +their faith within a form of words, or to limit the spiritual by any +analogy to our material existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at +were now but a fable of the world’s infancy. Therefore, as the final +sacrifice of human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the +embers of that awful pile, except the book which, though a celestial +revelation to past ages, was but a voice from a lower sphere as +regarded the present race of man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of +falsehood and worn-out truth—things that the earth had never needed, or +had ceased to need, or had grown childishly weary of—fell the ponderous +church Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion +of the pulpit, and whence the pastor’s solemn voice had given holy +utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the family +Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his children,—in +prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer shade of +trees,—and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom of generations. +There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that had been the soul’s +friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took courage, +whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both +in the strong assurance of immortality. + +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a +mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as if +it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of heaven’s +sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and scattered the +cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the spectators. + +“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and seeing +a like change in the visages about me. + +“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had so often +spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a singular +calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer. “Be of good +courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less both of good and +evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world might be willing to +believe.” + +“How can that be?” exclaimed I, impatiently. “Has it not consumed +everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or +divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be +acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning +better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?” + +“Assuredly there will,” said my grave friend. “Come hither to-morrow +morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile shall be quite +burned out, and you will find among the ashes everything really +valuable that you have seen cast into the flames. Trust me, the world +of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the gold and diamonds which +have been cast off by the world of today. Not a truth is destroyed nor +buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up at last.” + +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the +more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the +Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into +tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of +human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and +commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery test, +but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed from the +pen of inspiration. + +“Yes; there is the proof of what you say,” answered I, turning to the +observer; “but if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, +then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet, +if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether the world’s +expectation of benefit would be realized by it.” + +“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in +front of the blazing pile; “possibly they may teach you something +useful, without intending it.” + +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy +figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows,—the +hangman, in short,—together with the last thief and the last murderer, +all three of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was +liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the +general destruction of wines and spirits. This little convivial party +seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as considering that the +purified world must needs be utterly unlike the sphere that they had +hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and desolate abode for +gentlemen of their kidney. + +“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that, as +soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my three +friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang +myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer.” + +“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage, who +now joined the group,—his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his +eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; “be not so +cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one +thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and +without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all; +yes, though they had burned the earth itself to a cinder.” + +“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer. + +“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with +a portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying +that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong +and misery—the same old shapes or worse ones—which they have taken such +a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this +livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. O, take +my word for it, it will be the old world yet!” + +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened +thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor +for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the evil +principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of +the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little yet boundless +sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the crime and misery +of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and +the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem +almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of +their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and +strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what +is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial +that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully +described, were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that +would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of +my own brain. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH’S HOLOCAUST *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Earth’s Holocaust</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9231]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH’S HOLOCAUST ***</div> + +<h1>Earth’s Holocaust</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a matter +of little or no moment—this wide world had become so overburdened with an +accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the inhabitants determined to rid +themselves of it by a general bonfire. The site fixed upon at the +representation of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot as +any other on the globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no +human habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblage +of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights of +this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire might +reveal some profundity of moral truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I +made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although +the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had +already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening, +like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely visible one +tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was +destined to ensue. With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers, +women holding up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering +baggage-wagons, and other vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, +laden with articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned. +</p> + +<p> +“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a bystander; +for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the affair from beginning to +end. +</p> + +<p> +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or thereabout, who +had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He struck me immediately as having +weighed for himself the true value of life and its circumstances, and therefore +as feeling little personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form +of them. Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the kindling +light of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to the +purpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last month’s +magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some antiquated +trash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the bonfire, and +threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s office,—the +blazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of illustrious families, +pedigrees that extended back, like lines of light, into the mist of the dark +ages, together with stars, garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as +paltry a bawble as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed +vast significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious of +moral or material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with +this confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at once, were +innumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all the European +sovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of +which were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, too, +were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of which, as history +tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near being constituted out of the +king quellers of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents of +nobility of German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from +the worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new +parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the fair hand of +Victoria. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of flame, that +gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly distinctions, the +multitude of plebeian spectators set up a joyous shout, and clapped their hands +with an emphasis that made the welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, +achieved, after long ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same +spiritual infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to +Heaven’s better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the blazing heap a +gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat, from the breast of which +a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He +had not the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was the +demeanor, the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to +the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it questioned till +that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his eyes with +grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of stateliness,—“people, +what have you done? This fire is consuming all that marked your advance from +barbarism, or that could have prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of +the privileged orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old +chivalrous spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the +more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off the poet, +the painter, the sculptor,—all the beautiful arts; for we were their +patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they flourish. In abolishing the +majestic distinctions of rank, society loses not only its grace, but its +steadfastness—” +</p> + +<p> +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, sportive, +contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the appeal of the fallen +nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of despair at his own half-burned +pedigree, he shrunk back into the crowd, glad to shelter himself under his +new-found insignificance. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same fire!” +shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. “And henceforth let +no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment as his warrant for lording it +over his fellows. If he have strength of arm, well and good; it is one species +of superiority. If he have wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these +attributes do for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must +hope for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his +ancestors. That nonsense is done away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low voice, +however, “if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at all events, this +species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life.” +</p> + +<p> +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this time-honored +rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came another multitude from +beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of royalty, and the crowns, globes, +and sceptres of emperors and kings. All these had been condemned as useless +bawbles, playthings at best, fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to +govern and chastise it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its +full-grown stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had +these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled robes of +the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in among the rest, +doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the great stage of the world. +It was a strange sight to discern the crown jewels of England glowing and +flashing in the midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from +the time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues, or +perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates of Hindustan; +and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had fallen in +that spot and been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the ruined +monarchy had no reflection save in those inestimable precious stones. But +enough on this subject. It were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of +Austria’s mantle was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the +French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to distinguish +from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I noticed one of the +exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar of Russia’s sceptre, which +he afterwards flung into the flames. +</p> + +<p> +“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,” observed my new +acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a royal wardrobe. “Let +us get to windward and see what they are doing on the other side of the +bonfire.” +</p> + +<p> +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the arrival of a +vast procession of Washingtonians,—as the votaries of temperance call +themselves nowadays,—accompanied by thousands of the Irish disciples of +Father Mathew, with that great apostle at their head. They brought a rich +contribution to the bonfire, being nothing less than all the hogsheads and +barrels of liquor in the world, which they rolled before them across the +prairie. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge of the +fire, “one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us stand off and see +Satan deal with his own liquor.” +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the flames, the +procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld them burst into a +blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to set the sky itself on fire. And +well it might; for here was the whole world’s stock of spirituous liquors, +which, instead of kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as +of yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind. It +was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would otherwise have scorched the +hearts of millions. Meantime numberless bottles of precious wine were flung +into the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, and grew, +like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again +will the insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the +treasures of famous bon vivants,—liquors that had been tossed on ocean, +and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of the +earth,—the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever vineyards were +most delicate,—the entire vintage of Tokay,—all mingling in one +stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, and contributing to +heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose in a gigantic spire that seemed +to wave against the arch of the firmament and combine itself with the light of +stars, the multitude gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its +deliverance from the curse of ages. +</p> + +<p> +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be gloomier +than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. While the reformers +were at work I overheard muttered expostulations from several respectable +gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose +face looked like a hearth where the fire is burned out, now expressed his +discontent more openly and boldly. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that we can never be +jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and perplexity? How +is he to keep his heart warm against the cold winds of this cheerless earth? +And what do you propose to give him in exchange for the solace that you take +away? How are old friends to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful +glass between them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold +world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow’s living in, +now that good fellowship is gone forever!” +</p> + +<p> +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, preposterous as +was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating the forlorn condition of the +last toper, whose boon companions had dwindled away from his side, leaving the +poor fellow without a soul to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed +any liquor to sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I +had observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof brandy +that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the zeal of the +reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with all the boxes of tea and +bags of coffee in the world. And now came the planters of Virginia, bringing +their crops of tobacco. These, being cast upon the heap of inutility, +aggregated it to the size of a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such +potent fragrance that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The +present sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any that +they had hitherto witnessed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they’ve put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman, flinging it into the +flames in a pet. “What is this world coming to? Everything rich and +racy—all the spice of life—is to be condemned as useless. Now that +they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical reformers would fling +themselves into it, all would be well enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be patient,” responded a stanch conservative; “it will come to that in the +end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to consider the +individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In many instances these +were of a very amusing character. One poor fellow threw in his empty purse, and +another a bundle of counterfeit or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies +threw in their last season’s bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow +lace, and much other half-worn milliner’s ware, all of which proved even more +evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers +of both sexes—discarded maids or bachelors and couples mutually weary of +one another—tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets. A +hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of office, threw in his +teeth, which happened to be false ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith—having +voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose—came up to the bonfire +with a bitter grin and threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they +were with the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years old, +in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his playthings; a +college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined by the spread of +homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines; a physician, his library; a +parson, his old sermons; and a fine gentleman of the old school, his code of +manners, which he had formerly written down for the benefit of the next +generation. A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead +husband’s miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would willingly have +flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but could find no means to +wrench it out of his bosom. An American author, whose works were neglected by +the public, threw his pen and paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some +less discouraging occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of +ladies, highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and +petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the manners, +duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. +</p> + +<p> +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my attention being +suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half-delirious girl, who, exclaiming +that she was the most worthless thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself +into the fire amid all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good +man, however, ran to her rescue. +</p> + +<p> +“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew her back from the fierce embrace +of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and abide Heaven’s will. So long as you +possess a living soul, all may be restored to its first freshness. These things +of matter and creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned +when once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk down into +deep despondency, “yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of it!” +</p> + +<p> +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and munitions of +war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the exception of the world’s stock +of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of disposing of it, had already been +drowned in the sea. This intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of +opinion. The hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was +already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed +of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, +generosity, and magnanimity of the race would disappear,—these qualities, +as they affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted +themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war was +impracticable for any length of time together. +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long been the +voice of battle,—the artillery of the Armada, the battering trains of +Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and Wellington,—were +trundled into the midst of the fire. By the continual addition of dry +combustibles, it had now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron could +withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how these terrible instruments of +slaughter melted away like playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth +wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant +marches,—and flung in their muskets and swords. The standard-bearers, +likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all tattered with shot-holes +and inscribed with the names of victorious fields; and, giving them a last +flourish on the breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched them +upward in its rush towards the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was +left without a single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king’s +arms and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our State +armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets brayed all together, +as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and eternal peace and the +announcement that glory was no longer to be won by blood, but that it would +henceforth be the contention of the human race to work out the greatest mutual +good, and that beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, and caused +infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at the horror and +absurdity of war. +</p> + +<p> +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately old +commander,—by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he might have +been one of Napoleon’s famous marshals,—who, with the rest of the world’s +soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had been familiar to his right +hand for half a century. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they please; but, in the end, we +shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for the armorers and +cannon-founders.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine that the human race +will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness as to weld another +sword or cast another cannon?” +</p> + +<p> +“There will be no need,” observed, with a sneer, one who neither felt +benevolence nor had faith in it. “When Cain wished to slay his brother, he was +at no loss for a weapon.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see,” replied the veteran commander. “If I am mistaken, so much the +better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize about the matter, +the necessity of war lies far deeper than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! +is there a field for all the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be +no great law court for the settlement of national difficulties? The +battle-field is the only court where such suits can be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just such a +tribunal as is requisite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as he limped away. +</p> + +<p> +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto been +considered of even greater importance to the well-being of society than the +warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body of reformers had +travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery by which the different +nations were accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed +through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the +flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous +contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of itself was sufficient to +convince mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old +implements of cruelty; those horrible monsters of mechanism; those inventions +which it seemed to demand something worse than man’s natural heart to contrive, +and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of +terror-stricken legend,—were now brought forth to view. Headsmen’s axes, +with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast collection of +halters that had choked the breath of plebeian victims, were thrown in +together. A shout greeted the arrival of the guillotine, which was thrust +forward on the same wheels that had borne it from one to another of the +bloodstained streets of Paris. But the loudest roar of applause went up, +telling the distant sky of the triumph of the earth’s redemption, when the +gallows made its appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, +and, putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. +</p> + +<p> +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner should thus do +his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by which he himself had his +livelihood and worthier individuals their death; but it deserved special note +that men of a far different sphere—even of that consecrated class in +whose guardianship the world is apt to trust its benevolence—were found +to take the hangman’s view of the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained +instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up in its old place, +else the world will fall to speedy ruin and desolation!” +</p> + +<p> +“Onward! onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into the flames with the +accursed instrument of man’s bloody policy! How can human law inculcate +benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the gallows as its chief +symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the world will be redeemed from its +greatest error.” +</p> + +<p> +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent their +assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the centre of the +raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was beheld, first black, +then a red coal, then ashes. +</p> + +<p> +“That was well done!” exclaimed I. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was well done,” replied, but with less enthusiasm than I expected, the +thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,—“well done, if the world +be good enough for the measure. Death, however, is an idea that cannot easily +be dispensed with in any condition between the primal innocence and that other +purity and perfection which perchance we are destined to attain after +travelling round the full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the +experiment should now be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent leader in this +triumph. “Let the heart have its voice here as well as the intellect. And as +for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind always do the highest, kindest, +noblest thing that, at any given period, it has attained the perception of; and +surely that thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed.” +</p> + +<p> +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether the good +people around the bonfire were really growing more enlightened every instant; +but they now proceeded to measures in the full length of which I was hardly +prepared to keep them company. For instance, some threw their marriage +certificates into the flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, +holier, and more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the +birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened to the +vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich—all of which were opened +to the first comer on this fated occasion—and brought entire bales of +paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its +intensity. Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and +exhaustless, was to be the golden currency of the world. At this intelligence +the bankers and speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had +reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly fainting fit. A +few men of business burned their day-books and ledgers, the notes and +obligations of their creditors, and all other evidences of debts due to +themselves; while perhaps a somewhat larger number satisfied their zeal for +reform with the sacrifice of any uncomfortable recollection of their own +indebtment. There was then a cry that the period was arrived when the +title-deeds of landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole +soil of the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully +abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals. Another party +demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of government, legislative +acts, statute-books, and everything else on which human invention had +endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once be destroyed, leaving +the consummated world as free as the man first created. +</p> + +<p> +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these propositions is +beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters were in progress that +concerned my sympathies more nearly. +</p> + +<p> +“See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a fellow, who did not seem +to be a lover of literature. “Now we shall have a glorious blaze!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just the thing!” said a modern philosopher. “Now we shall get rid of +the weight of dead men’s thought, which has hitherto pressed so heavily on the +living intellect that it has been incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. +Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world +indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is to become of the trade?” cried a frantic bookseller. +</p> + +<p> +“O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise,” coolly observed an +author. “It will be a noble funeral-pile!” +</p> + +<p> +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of progress so far +beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever dreamed of, +that it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the earth to be any +longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the literary line. +Accordingly a thorough and searching investigation had swept the booksellers’ +shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private libraries, and even the little +book-shelf by the country fireside, and had brought the world’s entire mass of +printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain bulk of our +illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the labors of +lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling +among the embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes like rotten +wood. The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred +volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and +little jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation burned +red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of the spectators, +converting them all to the aspect of party-colored fiends. A collection of +German stories emitted a scent of brimstone. The English standard authors made +excellent fuel, generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s +works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a +coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other material of the +pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor that +men shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor even when the +works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a +dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is +still blazing as fervidly as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he might +then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, or at least +to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be expected from this +conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is, that writers will henceforth +be compelled to light their lamps at the sun or stars.” +</p> + +<p> +“If they can reach so high,” said I; “but that task requires a giant, who may +afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. It is not every one that +can steal the fire from heaven like Prometheus; but, when once he had done the +deed, a thousand hearths were kindled by it.” +</p> + +<p> +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion between the +physical mass of any given author and the property of brilliant and +long-continued combustion. For instance, there was not a quarto volume of the +last century—nor, indeed, of the present—that could compete in that +particular with a child’s little gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose’s +Melodies_. _The Life and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of +Marlborough. An epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes +before the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than one +case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of anything better +than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some nameless +bard—perchance in the corner of a newspaper—soared up among the +stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of the properties of +flame, methought Shelley’s poetry emitted a purer light than almost any other +productions of his day, contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid +gleams and gushes of black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of +Lord Byron. As for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. +</p> + +<p> +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American authors, and +scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of moments that changed most +of them from shabbily printed books to indistinguishable ashes. It would be +invidious, however, if not perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I +shall content myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most +frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the +bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of excellent inflammability +was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to speak +the truth, there were certain portions that hissed and spluttered in a very +disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several +writers, native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly respectable +figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even smouldering out their +substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a manner that proved them to be +ice. +</p> + +<p> +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be confessed +that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in vain. Too probably they +were changed to vapor by the first action of the heat; at best, I can only hope +that, in their quiet way, they contributed a glimmering spark or two to the +splendor of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking gentleman in green +spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing to live for any +longer. The business of my life is snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for +love or money!” +</p> + +<p> +“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm,—one of +those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are covered +with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; and, in good +earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to become of +the poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” said I to the desperate bookworm, “is not nature better than a +book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system of philosophy? Is not life +replete with more instruction than past observers have found it possible to +write down in maxims? Be of good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread +wide open before us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of +eternal truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!” reiterated the forlorn +bookworm. “My only reality was a bound volume; and now they will not leave me +even a shadowy pamphlet!” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now descending +upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets from the press of +the New World. These likewise were consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving +the earth, for the first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of +letters,—an enviable field for the authors of the next generation. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I, somewhat anxiously. +“Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap boldly off into infinite +space, I know not that we can carry reform to any farther point.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer. “Believe me, the +fire will not be allowed to settle down without the addition of fuel that will +startle many persons who have lent a willing hand thus far.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a little time, +during which, probably, the leaders of the movement were considering what +should be done next. In the interval, a philosopher threw his theory into the +flames,—a sacrifice which, by those who knew how to estimate it, was +pronounced the most remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, +was by no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a +moment’s ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the withered leaves +and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater +height than ever. But this was mere by-play. +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion. +</p> + +<p> +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space around +the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, mitres, crosiers, +and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems with which it seemed their +purpose to consummate the great act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old +cathedrals were cast upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence +of centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not looked up +to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which infants were consecrated +to God, the sacramental vessels whence piety received the hallowed draught, +were given to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to +see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and +undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the +meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have been permitted +to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, +even though the mighty structure of St. Peter’s had sent its spoils to the fire +of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of +religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew their +deep significance. +</p> + +<p> +“All is well,” said I, cheerfully. “The wood-paths shall be the aisles of our +cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. What needs an earthly +roof between the Deity and his worshippers? Our faith can well afford to lose +all the drapery that even the holiest men have thrown around it, and be only +the more sublime in its simplicity.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said my companion; “but will they pause here?” +</p> + +<p> +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general destruction +of books already described, a holy volume, that stood apart from the catalogue +of human literature, and yet, in one sense, was at its head, had been spared. +But the Titan of innovation,—angel or fiend, double in his nature, and +capable of deeds befitting both characters,—at first shaking down only +the old and rotten shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible +hand upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral and +spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened to +define their faith within a form of words, or to limit the spiritual by any +analogy to our material existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at were +now but a fable of the world’s infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of +human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful +pile, except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages, was +but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of man? It was +done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out truth—things that +the earth had never needed, or had ceased to need, or had grown childishly +weary of—fell the ponderous church Bible, the great old volume that had +lain so long on the cushion of the pulpit, and whence the pastor’s solemn voice +had given holy utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the +family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his +children,—in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer +shade of trees,—and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom of +generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that had been the +soul’s friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took courage, +whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both in the +strong assurance of immortality. +</p> + +<p> +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a mighty wind +came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as if it were the angry +lamentation of the earth for the loss of heaven’s sunshine; and it shook the +gigantic pyramid of flame and scattered the cinders of half-consumed +abominations around upon the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and seeing a like +change in the visages about me. +</p> + +<p> +“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had so often spoken. He +continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a singular calmness, as if it +concerned him merely as an observer. “Be of good courage, nor yet exult too +much; for there is far less both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire +than the world might be willing to believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can that be?” exclaimed I, impatiently. “Has it not consumed everything? +Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or divine appendage of our +mortal state that had substance enough to be acted on by fire? Will there be +anything left us to-morrow morning better or worse than a heap of embers and +ashes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly there will,” said my grave friend. “Come hither to-morrow morning, +or whenever the combustible portion of the pile shall be quite burned out, and +you will find among the ashes everything really valuable that you have seen +cast into the flames. Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself +with the gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today. Not +a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up +at last.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the more +especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the Holy +Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into tinder, only +assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of human imperfection were +purified away. Certain marginal notes and commentaries, it is true, yielded to +the intensity of the fiery test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable +that had flamed from the pen of inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; there is the proof of what you say,” answered I, turning to the observer; +“but if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, then, surely, the +conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you +intimate a doubt whether the world’s expectation of benefit would be realized +by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in front +of the blazing pile; “possibly they may teach you something useful, without +intending it.” +</p> + +<p> +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy figure +who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows,—the hangman, +in short,—together with the last thief and the last murderer, all three +of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was liberally passing +the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the general destruction of wines +and spirits. This little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of +despondency, as considering that the purified world must needs be utterly +unlike the sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and +desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney. +</p> + +<p> +“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that, as soon as we +have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my three friends, to a +comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang myself on the same bough. +This is no world for us any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage, who now joined +the group,—his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed +with a redder light than that of the bonfire; “be not so cast down, my dear +friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one thing that these wiseacres +have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the +conflagration is just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth +itself to a cinder.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer. +</p> + +<p> +“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with a +portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul +cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery—the +same old shapes or worse ones—which they have taken such a vast deal of +trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this livelong night and laughed in +my sleeve at the whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old +world yet!” +</p> + +<p> +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How +sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor for perfection had +served only to render him the mockery of the evil principle, from the fatal +circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, +there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of +which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that +inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which +now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of +their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and strive, with +merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole +accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters little whether +the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we choose to call +a real event and a flame that would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric +radiance and a parable of my own brain. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH’S HOLOCAUST ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ae593c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9231 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9231) diff --git a/old/9231.txt b/old/9231.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a0a314 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/9231.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1197 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old +Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #9231] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 6, 2003 +Last Updated: February 6, 2007 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH'S HOLOCAUST *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + EARTH'S HOLOCAUST + + + +Once upon a time--but whether in the time past or time to come is a +matter of little or no moment--this wide world had become so +overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the +inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. +The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance +companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, +was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human +habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast +assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having +a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the +illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundity of moral +truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to +journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of +condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had +already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the +evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely +visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so +fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment, +however, there came foot-travellers, women holding up their aprons, +men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage-wagons, and other +vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, laden with +articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned. + +"What materials have been used to kindle the flame?" inquired I of a +bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the +affair from beginning to end. + +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or +thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He +struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value +of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little +personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them. +Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the +kindling light of the fire. + +"O, some very dry combustibles," replied he, "and extremely suitable +to the purpose,--no other, in fact, than yesterday's newspapers, +last month's magazines, and last year's withered leaves. Here now +comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of +shavings." + +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the +bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the +herald's office,--the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and +devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like +lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, +garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble +as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast +significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most +precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the +gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed +into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of +knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and +Napoleon's decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which +were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, +too, were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of +which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near +being constituted out of the king quellers of the Revolution. And +besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and +barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten +instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new +parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the +fair hand of Victoria. + +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of +flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of +earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a +joyous shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the +welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long +ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual +infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to +Heaven's better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the +blazing heap a gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat, +from the breast of which a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to +have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not the tokens of +intellectual power in his face; but still there was the demeanor, +the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to +the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it +questioned till that moment. + +"People," cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his +eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of +stateliness,--"people, what have you done? This fire is consuming +all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have +prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged +orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous +spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the +more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off +the poet, the painter, the sculptor,--all the beautiful arts; for +we were their patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they +flourish. In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society +loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness--" + +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, +sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the +appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of +despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the +crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance. + +"Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same +fire!" shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. +"And henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment +as his warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength +of arm, well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have +wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do +for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope +for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his +ancestors. That nonsense is done away." + +"And in good time," remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low +voice, however, "if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at +all events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life." + +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this +time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came +another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of +royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. +All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best, +fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise +it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown +stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt +had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and +tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been +thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother +monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to +discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the +midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from the +time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues, +or perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates +of Hindustan; and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if +a star had fallen in that spot and been shattered into fragments. +The splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those +inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It were +but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria's mantle was +converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French +throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to +distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that +I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the +Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames. + +"The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here," observed +my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a +royal wardrobe. "Let us get to windward and see what they are doing +on the other side of the bonfire." + +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the +arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,--as the votaries of +temperance call themselves nowadays,--accompanied by thousands of +the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at +their head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being +nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the +world, which they rolled before them across the prairie. + +"Now, my children," cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge +of the fire, "one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us +stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor." + +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the +flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld +them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to +set the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the +whole world's stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of +kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of +yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all +mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would +otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions. Meantime numberless +bottles of precious wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up +the contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other drunkards, +the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again will the +insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the +treasures of famous bon vivants,--liquors that had been tossed on +ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of +the earth,--the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever +vineyards were most delicate,--the entire vintage of Tokay,--all +mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, +and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose +in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the +firmament and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude +gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance +from the curse of ages. + +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be +gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. +While the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations +from several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty +shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where +the fire is burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and +boldly. + +"What is this world good for," said the last toper, "now that we can +never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow +and perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold +winds of this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him +in exchange for the solace that you take away? How are old friends +to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful glass between +them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold +world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow's +living in, now that good fellowship is gone forever!" + +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, +preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating +the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had +dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul +to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to +sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had +observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof +brandy that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. + +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the +zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with +all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came +the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These, +being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of +a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance +that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The present +sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any +that they had hitherto witnessed. + +"Well, they've put my pipe out," said an old gentleman, flinging it +into the flames in a pet. "What is this world coming to? Everything +rich and racy--all the spice of life--is to be condemned as useless. +Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical +reformers would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!" + +"Be patient," responded a stanch conservative; "it will come to that +in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves." + +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to +consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In +many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor +fellow threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit +or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last +season's bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and +much other half-worn milliner's ware, all of which proved even more +evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude +of lovers of both sexes--discarded maids or bachelors and couples +mutually weary of one another--tossed in bundles of perfumed letters +and enamored sonnets. A hack politician, being deprived of bread by +the loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false +ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith--having voyaged across the Atlantic for +that sole purpose--came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and +threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with +the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years +old, in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his +playthings; a college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined +by the spread of homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines; +a physician, his library; a parson, his old sermons; and a fine +gentleman of the old school, his code of manners, which he had +formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation. A +widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead +husband's miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would +willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but +could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American +author, whose works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and +paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging +occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies, +highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and +petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the +manners, duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. + +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my +attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and +half-delirious girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless +thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid +all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man, +however, ran to her rescue. + +"Patience, my poor girl!" said he, as he drew her back from the +fierce embrace of the destroying angel. "Be patient, and abide +Heaven's will. So long as you possess a living soul, all may be +restored to its first freshness. These things of matter and +creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned when +once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!" + +"Yes," said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk +down into deep despondency, "yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of +it!" + +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and +munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the +exception of the world's stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest +mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This +intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The +hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was +already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind +was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, +fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would +disappear,--these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for +their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief +that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for any length +of time together. + +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long +been the voice of battle,--the artillery of the Armada, the +battering trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon +and Wellington,--were trundled into the midst of the fire. By the +continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed so intense +that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was wonderful to +behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away like +playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth wheeled around the +mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant +marches,--and flung in their muskets and swords. The +standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all +tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the names of victorious +fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the breeze, they lowered +them into the flame, which snatched them upward in its rush towards +the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was left without a +single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king's arms +and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our +State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets +brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of universal +and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no longer to +be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the contention of +the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that +beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, +and caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at +the horror and absurdity of war. + +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately +old commander,--by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he +might have been one of Napoleon's famous marshals,--who, with the +rest of the world's soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had +been familiar to his right hand for half a century. + +"Ay! ay!" grumbled he. "Let them proclaim what they please; but, +in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more +work for the armorers and cannon-founders." + +"Why, sir," exclaimed I, in astonishment, "do you imagine that the +human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness +as to weld another sword or cast another cannon?" + +"There will be no need," observed, with a sneer, one who neither +felt benevolence nor had faith in it. "When Cain wished to slay his +brother, he was at no loss for a weapon." + +"We shall see," replied the veteran commander. "If I am mistaken, +so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to +philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper +than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all +the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law +court for the settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field +is the only court where such suits can be tried." + +"You forget, general," rejoined I, "that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just +such a tribunal as is requisite." + +"Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!" said the old warrior, as he +limped away. + +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto +been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of +society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen +consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in +quest of the machinery by which the different nations were +accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed +through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. +Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape +and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of +itself was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and deadly +error of human law. Those old implements of cruelty; those horrible +monsters of mechanism; those inventions which it seemed to demand +something worse than man's natural heart to contrive, and which had +lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of +terror-stricken legend,--were now brought forth to view. Headsmen's +axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast +collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian +victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of +the guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had +borne it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris. +But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of +the triumph of the earth's redemption, when the gallows made its +appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and, +putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. + +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner +should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by +which he himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their +death; but it deserved special note that men of a far different +sphere--even of that consecrated class in whose guardianship the +world is apt to trust its benevolence--were found to take the +hangman's view of the question. + +"Stay, my brethren!" cried one of them. "You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained +instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up +in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and +desolation!" + +"Onward! onward!" shouted a leader in the reform. "Into the flames +with the accursed instrument of man's bloody policy! How can human +law inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the +gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the +world will be redeemed from its greatest error." + +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent +their assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the +centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image +was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes. + +"That was well done!" exclaimed I. + +"Yes, it was well done," replied, but with less enthusiasm than I +expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,--"well +done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however, +is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition +between the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection +which perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the +full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment +should now be tried." + +"Too cold! too cold!" impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent +leader in this triumph. "Let the heart have its voice here as well +as the intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let +mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any +given period, it has attained the perception of; and surely that +thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed." + +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether +the good people around the bonfire were really growing more +enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the +full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company. +For instance, some threw their marriage certificates into the +flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and +more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the +birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened +to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich--all of which +were opened to the first comer on this fated occasion--and brought +entire bales of paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin +to be melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they said, +universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, was to be the +golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the bankers and +speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had +reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly +fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and +ledgers, the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other +evidences of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat +larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of +any uncomfortable recollection of their own indebtment. There was +then a cry that the period was arrived when the title-deeds of +landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole soil of +the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully +abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals. +Another party demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of +government, legislative acts, statute-books, and everything else on +which human invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, +should at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free +as the man first created. + +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these +propositions is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters +were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly. + +"See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!" cried a fellow, who +did not seem to be a lover of literature. "Now we shall have a +glorious blaze!" + +"That's just the thing!" said a modern philosopher. "Now we shall +get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto +pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been +incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! +Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world +indeed!" + +"But what is to become of the trade?" cried a frantic bookseller. + +"O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise," coolly +observed an author. "It will be a noble funeral-pile!" + +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of +progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former +ages had ever dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest +absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered with their +poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly a thorough and +searching investigation had swept the booksellers' shops, hawkers' +stands, public and private libraries, and even the little book-shelf +by the country fireside, and had brought the world's entire mass of +printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain +bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the +labors of lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were +flung in, and, falling among the embers with a leaden thump, +smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. The small, richly gilt +French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of Voltaire +among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and little +jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation +burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of +the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of party-colored +fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of +brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel, +generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton's +works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening +into a coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other +material of the pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such +marvellous splendor that men shaded their eyes as against the sun's +meridian glory; nor even when the works of his own elucidators were +flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from +beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is still +blazing as fervidly as ever. + +"Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame," remarked I, +"he might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose." + +"That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, +or at least to attempt," answered a critic. "The chief benefit to +be expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly +is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps +at the sun or stars." + +"If they can reach so high," said I; "but that task requires a +giant, who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. +It is not every one that can steal the fire from heaven like +Prometheus; but, when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths +were kindled by it." + +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion +between the physical mass of any given author and the property of +brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance, there was +not a quarto volume of the last century--nor, indeed, of the +present--that could compete in that particular with a child's little +gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose's Melodies_. _The Life +and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of Marlborough. An +epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes before +the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than +one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of +anything better than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some +nameless bard--perchance in the corner of a newspaper--soared up +among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of +the properties of flame, methought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer +light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting +beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black +vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As +for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. + +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American +authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of +moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to +indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not +perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content +myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most +frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance +in the bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of +excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by +Ellery Channing; although, to speak the truth, there were certain +portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disagreeable fashion. +A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several writers, +native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly +respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even +smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a +manner that proved them to be ice. + +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be +confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in +vain. Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action +of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they +contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the +evening. + +"Alas! and woe is me!" thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking +gentleman in green spectacles. "The world is utterly ruined, and +there is nothing to live for any longer. The business of my life is +snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or money!" + +"This," remarked the sedate observer beside me, "is a bookworm,--one +of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you +see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward +fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is +abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. Have +you no word of comfort for him?" + +"My dear sir," said I to the desperate bookworm, "is not nature +better than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system +of philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past +observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of +good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before +us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal +truth." + +"O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!" reiterated the +forlorn bookworm. "My only reality was a bound volume; and now they +will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!" + +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now +descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of +pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were +consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the +first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of +letters,--an enviable field for the authors of the next generation. + +"Well, and does anything remain to be done?" inquired I, somewhat +anxiously. "Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap +boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform +to any farther point." + +"You are vastly mistaken, my good friend," said the observer. +"Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the +addition of fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a +willing hand thus far." + +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a +little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement +were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a +philosopher threw his theory into the flames,--a sacrifice which, by +those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most +remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, was by +no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a +moment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the +withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby +recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was +mere by-play. + +"Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of," said my companion. + +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant +space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly +garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant +emblems with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great +act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast +upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of +centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not +looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which +infants were consecrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence +piety received the hallowed draught, were given to the same +destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to see among +these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and +undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the +meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have +been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their +Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of +St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible +sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of +religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best +knew their deep significance. + +"All is well," said I, cheerfully. "The wood-paths shall be the +aisles of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. +What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers? +Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that even the +holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in +its simplicity." + +"True," said my companion; "but will they pause here?" + +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general +destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood +apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense, +was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,--angel +or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting +both characters,--at first shaking down only the old and rotten +shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand +upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral +and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too +enlightened to define their faith within a form of words, or to +limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material existence. +Truths which the heavens trembled at were now but a fable of the +world's infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of human error, +what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile, +except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages, +was but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of +man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out +truth--things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased to +need, or had grown childishly weary of--fell the ponderous church +Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion of +the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn voice had given holy +utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the +family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his +children,--in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the +summer shade of trees,--and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom +of generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that +had been the soul's friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who +thence took courage, whether his trial were for life or death, +steadfastly confronting both in the strong assurance of immortality. + +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a +mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as +if it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of +heaven's sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and +scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the +spectators. + +"This is terrible!" said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and +seeing a like change in the visages about me. + +"Be of good courage yet," answered the man with whom I had so often +spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a +singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer. +"Be of good courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less +both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world +might be willing to believe." + +"How can that be?" exclaimed I, impatiently. "Has it not consumed +everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or +divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be +acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning +better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?" + +"Assuredly there will," said my grave friend. "Come hither +to-morrow morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile +shall be quite burned out, and you will find among the ashes +everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames. +Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the +gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today. +Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it +will be raked up at last." + +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the +more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the +Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into +tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of +human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and +commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery +test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed +from the pen of inspiration. + +"Yes; there is the proof of what you say," answered I, turning to +the observer; "but if only what is evil can feel the action of the +fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable +utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether +the world's expectation of benefit would be realized by it." + +"Listen to the talk of these worthies," said he, pointing to a group +in front of the blazing pile; "possibly they may teach you something +useful, without intending it." + +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most +earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the +gallows,--the hangman, in short,--together with the last thief and +the last murderer, all three of whom were clustered about the last +toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he +had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This +little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as +considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the +sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and +desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney. + +"The best counsel for all of us is," remarked the hangman, "that, +as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my +three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then +hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer." + +"Poh, poh, my good fellows!" said a dark-complexioned personage, who +now joined the group,--his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and +his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; "be +not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. +There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into +the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is +just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth itself to +a cinder." + +"And what may that be?" eagerly demanded the last murderer. + +"What but the human heart itself?" said the dark-visaged stranger, +with a portentous grin. "And, unless they hit upon some method of +purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the +shapes of wrong and misery--the same old shapes or worse ones--which +they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I +have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the +whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old world +yet!" + +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened +thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man's age-long +endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of +the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the +very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little +yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the +crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify +that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the +outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to +shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord; but if we go no +deeper than the intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble +instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole +accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters +little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, +were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that would +scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of my +own brain. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From +An Old Manse"), by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARTH'S HOLOCAUST *** + +***** This file should be named 9231.txt or 9231.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/3/9231/ + +Produced by David Widger. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/9231.zip b/old/9231.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a735a2a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/9231.zip diff --git a/old/haw5810.txt b/old/haw5810.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee9baaf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/haw5810.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1168 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, Earth's Holocaust, by Nathaniel Hawthorne +From "Mosses From An Old Manse" +#58 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9231] +[This file was first posted on September 6, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, EARTH'S HOLOCAUST *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + EARTH'S HOLOCAUST + + + +Once upon a time--but whether in the time past or time to come is a +matter of little or no moment--this wide world had become so +overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the +inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. +The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance +companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, +was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human +habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast +assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having +a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the +illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundity of moral +truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to +journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of +condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had +already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the +evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely +visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so +fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment, +however, there came foot-travellers, women holding up their aprons, +men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage-wagons, and other +vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, laden with +articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned. + +"What materials have been used to kindle the flame?" inquired I of a +bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the +affair from beginning to end. + +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or +thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He +struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value +of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little +personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them. +Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the +kindling light of the fire. + +"O, some very dry combustibles," replied he, "and extremely suitable +to the purpose,--no other, in fact, than yesterday's newspapers, +last month's magazines, and last year's withered leaves. Here now +comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of +shavings." + +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the +bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the +herald's office,--the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and +devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like +lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, +garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble +as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast +significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most +precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the +gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed +into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of +knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and +Napoleon's decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which +were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, +too, were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of +which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near +being constituted out of the king quellers of the Revolution. And +besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and +barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten +instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new +parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the +fair hand of Victoria. + +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of +flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of +earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a +joyous shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the +welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long +ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual +infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to +Heaven's better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the +blazing heap a gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat, +from the breast of which a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to +have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not the tokens of +intellectual power in his face; but still there was the demeanor, +the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to +the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it +questioned till that moment. + +"People," cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his +eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of +stateliness,--"people, what have you done? This fire is consuming +all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have +prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged +orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous +spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the +more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off +the poet, the painter, the sculptor,--all the beautiful arts; for +we were their patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they +flourish. In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society +loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness--" + +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, +sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the +appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of +despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the +crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance. + +"Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same +fire!" shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. +"And henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment +as his warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength +of arm, well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have +wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do +for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope +for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his +ancestors. That nonsense is done away." + +"And in good time," remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low +voice, however, "if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at +all events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life." + +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this +time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came +another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of +royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. +All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best, +fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise +it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown +stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt +had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and +tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been +thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother +monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to +discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the +midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from the +time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues, +or perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates +of Hindustan; and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if +a star had fallen in that spot and been shattered into fragments. +The splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those +inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It were +but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria's mantle was +converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French +throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to +distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that +I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the +Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames. + +"The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here," observed +my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a +royal wardrobe. "Let us get to windward and see what they are doing +on the other side of the bonfire." + +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the +arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,--as the votaries of +temperance call themselves nowadays,--accompanied by thousands of +the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at +their head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being +nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the +world, which they rolled before them across the prairie. + +"Now, my children," cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge +of the fire, "one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us +stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor." + +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the +flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld +them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to +set the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the +whole world's stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of +kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of +yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all +mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would +otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions. Meantime numberless +bottles of precious wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up +the contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other drunkards, +the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again will the +insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the +treasures of famous bon vivants,--liquors that had been tossed on +ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of +the earth,--the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever +vineyards were most delicate,--the entire vintage of Tokay,--all +mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, +and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose +in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the +firmament and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude +gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance +from the curse of ages. + +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be +gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. +While the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations +from several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty +shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where +the fire is burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and +boldly. + +"What is this world good for," said the last toper, "now that we can +never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow +and perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold +winds of this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him +in exchange for the solace that you take away? How are old friends +to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful glass between +them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold +world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow's +living in, now that good fellowship is gone forever!" + +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, +preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating +the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had +dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul +to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to +sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had +observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof +brandy that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. + +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the +zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with +all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came +the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These, +being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of +a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance +that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The present +sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any +that they had hitherto witnessed. + +"Well, they've put my pipe out," said an old gentleman, flinging it +into the flames in a pet. "What is this world coming to? Everything +rich and racy--all the spice of life--is to be condemned as useless. +Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical +reformers would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!" + +"Be patient," responded a stanch conservative; "it will come to that +in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves." + +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to +consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In +many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor +fellow threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit +or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last +season's bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and +much other half-worn milliner's ware, all of which proved even more +evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude +of lovers of both sexes--discarded maids or bachelors and couples +mutually weary of one another--tossed in bundles of perfumed letters +and enamored sonnets. A hack politician, being deprived of bread by +the loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false +ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith--having voyaged across the Atlantic for +that sole purpose--came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and +threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with +the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years +old, in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his +playthings; a college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined +by the spread of homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines; +a physician, his library; a parson, his old sermons; and a fine +gentleman of the old school, his code of manners, which he had +formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation. A +widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead +husband's miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would +willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but +could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American +author, whose works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and +paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging +occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies, +highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and +petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the +manners, duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. + +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my +attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half- +delirious girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless +thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid +all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man, +however, ran to her rescue. + +"Patience, my poor girl!" said he, as he drew her back from the +fierce embrace of the destroying angel. "Be patient, and abide +Heaven's will. So long as you possess a living soul, all may be +restored to its first freshness. These things of matter and +creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned when +once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!" + +"Yes," said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk +down into deep despondency, "yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of +it!" + +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and +munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the +exception of the world's stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest +mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This +intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The +hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was +already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind +was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, +fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would +disappear,--these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for +their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief +that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for any length +of time together. + +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long +been the voice of battle,--the artillery of the Armada, the +battering trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon +and Wellington,--were trundled into the midst of the fire. By the +continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed so intense +that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was wonderful to +behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away like +playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth wheeled around the +mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant +marches,--and flung in their muskets and swords. The standard- +bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all +tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the names of victorious +fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the breeze, they lowered +them into the flame, which snatched them upward in its rush towards +the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was left without a +single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king's arms +and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our +State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets +brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of universal +and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no longer to +be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the contention of +the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that +beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, +and caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at +the horror and absurdity of war. + +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately +old commander,--by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he +might have been one of Napoleon's famous marshals,--who, with the +rest of the world's soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had +been familiar to his right hand for half a century. + +"Ay! ay!" grumbled he. "Let them proclaim what they please; but, +in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more +work for the armorers and cannon-founders." + +"Why, sir," exclaimed I, in astonishment, "do you imagine that the +human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness +as to weld another sword or cast another cannon?" + +"There will be no need," observed, with a sneer, one who neither +felt benevolence nor had faith in it. "When Cain wished to slay his +brother, he was at no loss for a weapon." + +"We shall see," replied the veteran commander. "If I am mistaken, +so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to +philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper +than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all +the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law +court for the settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field +is the only court where such suits can be tried." + +"You forget, general," rejoined I, "that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just +such a tribunal as is requisite." + +"Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!" said the old warrior, as he +limped away. + +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto +been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of +society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen +consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in +quest of the machinery by which the different nations were +accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed +through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. +Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape +and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of +itself was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and deadly +error of human law. Those old implements of cruelty; those horrible +monsters of mechanism; those inventions which it seemed to demand +something worse than man's natural heart to contrive, and which had +lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of terror- +stricken legend,--were now brought forth to view. Headsmen's axes, +with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast +collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian +victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of +the guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had +borne it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris. +But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of +the triumph of the earth's redemption, when the gallows made its +appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and, +putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. + +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner +should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by +which he himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their +death; but it deserved special note that men of a far different +sphere--even of that consecrated class in whose guardianship the +world is apt to trust its benevolence--were found to take the +hangman's view of the question. + +"Stay, my brethren!" cried one of them. "You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven- +ordained instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up +in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and +desolation!" + +"Onward! onward!" shouted a leader in the reform. "Into the flames +with the accursed instrument of man's bloody policy! How can human +law inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the +gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the +world will be redeemed from its greatest error." + +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent +their assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the +centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image +was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes. + +"That was well done!" exclaimed I. + +"Yes, it was well done," replied, but with less enthusiasm than I +expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,--"well +done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however, +is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition +between the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection +which perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the +full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment +should now be tried." + +"Too cold! too cold!" impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent +leader in this triumph. "Let the heart have its voice here as well +as the intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let +mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any +given period, it has attained the perception of; and surely that +thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed." + +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether +the good people around the bonfire were really growing more +enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the +full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company. +For instance, some threw their marriage certificates into the +flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and +more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the +birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened +to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich--all of which +were opened to the first comer on this fated occasion--and brought +entire bales of paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin +to be melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they said, +universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, was to be the +golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the bankers and +speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had +reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly +fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and +ledgers, the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other +evidences of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat +larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of +any uncomfortable recollection of their own indebtment. There was +then a cry that the period was arrived when the title-deeds of +landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole soil of +the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully +abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals. +Another party demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of +government, legislative acts, statute-books, and everything else on +which human invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, +should at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free +as the man first created. + +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these +propositions is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters +were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly. + +"See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!" cried a fellow, who +did not seem to be a lover of literature. "Now we shall have a +glorious blaze!" + +"That's just the thing!" said a modern philosopher. "Now we shall +get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto +pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been +incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! +Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world +indeed!" + +"But what is to become of the trade?" cried a frantic bookseller. + +"O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise," coolly +observed an author. "It will be a noble funeral-pile!" + +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of +progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former +ages had ever dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest +absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered with their +poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly a thorough and +searching investigation had swept the booksellers' shops, hawkers' +stands, public and private libraries, and even the little book-shelf +by the country fireside, and had brought the world's entire mass of +printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain +bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the +labors of lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were +flung in, and, falling among the embers with a leaden thump, +smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. The small, richly gilt +French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of Voltaire +among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and little +jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation +burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of +the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of party-colored +fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of +brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel, +generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton's +works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening +into a coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other +material of the pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such +marvellous splendor that men shaded their eyes as against the sun's +meridian glory; nor even when the works of his own elucidators were +flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from +beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is still +blazing as fervidly as ever. + +"Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame," remarked I, +"he might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose." + +"That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, +or at least to attempt," answered a critic. "The chief benefit to +be expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly +is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps +at the sun or stars." + +"If they can reach so high," said I; "but that task requires a +giant, who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. +It is not every one that can steal the fire from heaven like +Prometheus; but, when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths +were kindled by it." + +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion +between the physical mass of any given author and the property of +brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance, there was +not a quarto volume of the last century--nor, indeed, of the +present--that could compete in that particular with a child's little +gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose's Melodies_. _The Life +and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of Marlborough. An +epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes before +the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than +one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of +anything better than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some +nameless bard--perchance in the corner of a newspaper--soared up +among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of +the properties of flame, methought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer +light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting +beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black +vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As +for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. + +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American +authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of +moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to +indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not +perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content +myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most +frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance +in the bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of +excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by +Ellery Channing; although, to speak the truth, there were certain +portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disagreeable fashion. +A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several writers, +native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly +respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even +smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a +manner that proved them to be ice. + +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be +confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in +vain. Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action +of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they +contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the +evening. + +"Alas! and woe is me!" thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking +gentleman in green spectacles. "The world is utterly ruined, and +there is nothing to live for any longer. The business of my life is +snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or money!" + +"This," remarked the sedate observer beside me, "is a bookworm,--one +of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you +see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward +fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is +abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. Have +you no word of comfort for him?" + +"My dear sir," said I to the desperate bookworm, "is not nature +better than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system +of philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past +observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of +good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before +us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal +truth." + +"O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!" reiterated the +forlorn bookworm. "My only reality was a bound volume; and now they +will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!" + +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now +descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of +pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were +consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the +first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of +letters,--an enviable field for the authors of the next generation. + +"Well, and does anything remain to be done?" inquired I, somewhat +anxiously. "Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap +boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform +to any farther point." + +"You are vastly mistaken, my good friend," said the observer. +"Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the +addition of fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a +willing hand thus far." + +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a +little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement +were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a +philosopher threw his theory into the flames,--a sacrifice which, by +those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most +remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, was by +no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a +moment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the +withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby +recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was +mere by-play. + +"Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of," said my companion. + +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant +space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly +garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant +emblems with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great +act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast +upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of +centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not +looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which +infants were consecrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence +piety received the hallowed draught, were given to the same +destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to see among +these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and +undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the +meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have +been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their +Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of +St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible +sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of +religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best +knew their deep significance. + +"All is well," said I, cheerfully. "The wood-paths shall be the +aisles of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. +What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers? +Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that even the +holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in +its simplicity." + +"True," said my companion; "but will they pause here?" + +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general +destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood +apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense, +was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,-- +angel or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting +both characters,--at first shaking down only the old and rotten +shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand +upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral +and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too +enlightened to define their faith within a form of words, or to +limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material existence. +Truths which the heavens trembled at were now but a fable of the +world's infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of human error, +what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile, +except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages, +was but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of +man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out +truth--things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased to +need, or had grown childishly weary of--fell the ponderous church +Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion of +the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn voice had given holy +utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the +family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his +children,--in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the +summer shade of trees,--and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom +of generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that +had been the soul's friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who +thence took courage, whether his trial were for life or death, +steadfastly confronting both in the strong assurance of immortality. + +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a +mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as +if it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of +heaven's sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and +scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the +spectators. + +"This is terrible!" said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and +seeing a like change in the visages about me. + +"Be of good courage yet," answered the man with whom I had so often +spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a +singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer. +"Be of good courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less +both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world +might be willing to believe." + +"How can that be?" exclaimed I, impatiently. "Has it not consumed +everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or +divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be +acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning +better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?" + +"Assuredly there will," said my grave friend. "Come hither +to-morrow morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile +shall be quite burned out, and you will find among the ashes +everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames. +Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the +gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today. +Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it +will be raked up at last." + +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the +more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the +Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into +tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of +human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and +commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery +test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed +from the pen of inspiration. + +"Yes; there is the proof of what you say," answered I, turning to +the observer; "but if only what is evil can feel the action of the +fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable +utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether +the world's expectation of benefit would be realized by it." + +"Listen to the talk of these worthies," said he, pointing to a group +in front of the blazing pile; "possibly they may teach you something +useful, without intending it." + +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most +earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the +gallows,--the hangman, in short,--together with the last thief and +the last murderer, all three of whom were clustered about the last +toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he +had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This +little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as +considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the +sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and +desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney. + +"The best counsel for all of us is," remarked the hangman, "that, +as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my +three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then +hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer." + +"Poh, poh, my good fellows!" said a dark-complexioned personage, who +now joined the group,--his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and +his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; "be +not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. +There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into +the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is +just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth itself to +a cinder." + +"And what may that be?" eagerly demanded the last murderer. + +"What but the human heart itself?" said the dark-visaged stranger, +with a portentous grin. "And, unless they hit upon some method of +purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the +shapes of wrong and misery--the same old shapes or worse ones--which +they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I +have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the +whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old world +yet!" + +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened +thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man's age-long +endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of +the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the +very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little +yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the +crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify +that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the +outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to +shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord; but if we go no +deeper than the intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble +instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole +accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters +little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, +were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that would +scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of my +own brain. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, EARTH'S HOLOCAUST *** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +**** This file should be named haw5810.txt or haw5810.zip *** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw5811.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw5810a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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