might elapse--every year containing twelve months, each of more numerous

calculation in a diary, than the twenty-five days gone by--Can it be?

Will it be?--We had been used to look forward to death tremulously--

wherefore, but because its place was obscure? But more terrible, and far

more obscure, was the unveiled course of my lone futurity. I broke my wand;

I threw it from me. I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growth

of my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than those

ruled over by the planets--and, in looking back on the age that had

elapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of days and

hours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned it out.

I hid my face in my hands. The twitter of the young birds going to rest,

and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still evening-air--the

crickets chirped--the aziolo cooed at intervals. My thoughts had been of

death--these sounds spoke to me of life. I lifted up my eyes--a bat

wheeled round--the sun had sunk behind the jagged line of mountains, and

the paly, crescent moon was visible, silver white, amidst the orange

sunset, and accompanied by one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight. A

herd of cattle passed along in the dell below, untended, towards their

watering place--the grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and the

olive-woods, mellowed into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted their

sea-green with the dark chestnut foliage. Yes, this is the earth; there is

no change--no ruin--no rent made in her verdurous expanse; she

continues to wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, through

the sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant. Why could I not

forget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wild

600

The Last Man