CHAPTER IX.

NOW--soft awhile--have I arrived so near the end? Yes! it is all over

now--a step or two over those new made graves, and the wearisome way is

done. Can I accomplish my task? Can I streak my paper with words capacious

of the grand conclusion? Arise, black Melancholy! quit thy Cimmerian

solitude! Bring with thee murky fogs from hell, which may drink up the day;

bring blight and pestiferous exhalations, which, entering the hollow

caverns and breathing places of earth, may fill her stony veins with

corruption, so that not only herbage may no longer flourish, the trees may

rot, and the rivers run with gall--but the everlasting mountains be

decomposed, and the mighty deep putrify, and the genial atmosphere which

clips the globe, lose all powers of generation and sustenance. Do this, sad

visaged power, while I write, while eyes read these pages.

And who will read them? Beware, tender offspring of the re-born world--

beware, fair being, with human heart, yet untamed by care, and human brow,

yet unploughed by time--beware, lest the cheerful current of thy blood be

checked, thy golden locks turn grey, thy sweet dimpling smiles be changed

to fixed, harsh wrinkles! Let not day look on these lines, lest garish day

waste, turn pale, and die. Seek a cypress grove, whose moaning boughs will

be harmony befitting; seek some cave, deep embowered in earth's dark

entrails, where no light will penetrate, save that which struggles, red and

flickering, through a single fissure, staining thy page with grimmest

livery of death.

572

The Last Man