When at the end Antony is drawn up to the loophole in the tower, bleeding, half dead; and his love, struggling with the heavy weight, can hardly pull him in;—I really cannot bear it, and sob like a child! What is it that moves me thus, and binds me to these men and women as if to those of my own blood? except the fact that we are truly of one family, we are Man, each and all of us.
I pity people from the bottom of my heart who know nothing of the profound pleasure of books; they are like disinherited children, but they do not know it, and boast that the present is enough for them. Blind geese! who can see no farther than the end of their noses! Not that I mean to deny the merits of the present; that would come with an ill grace from one like me, who have always kept my hands and my mouth open for anything good. No, those who find fault with the present are ignorant, or else they have a poor digestion: I understand a man who clasps all that he can reach to his heart, but there are those who reach nothing worth while:—he who contents himself with little is of small value; and I have always preferred to take the most that I could get in life.
In Adam’s time the present was all very well; there were no clothes to wear, and only one woman in the world; but life is fuller now, coming as we do at the end of a long line of ancestors, heirs to all that they have amassed, and we should be fools indeed to neglect the harvests of the past, on the pretext that we can gather others.
I often dwell on the thought of Adam. He and I are really the same person, only I am older and bigger; the same tree, but with more branches. I feel every stroke of the woodman’s axe to my remotest leaf; all the joys and sorrows of the world are mine; I laugh with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep; and this is especially true of the world of books; there, more than in my own life, I feel the bond that unites men, from prince to peasant.
Soon of us all there will remain only a few ashes, and the flame which rises, one yet infinitely multiplied, from our inmost souls towards Heaven. There with its thousand tongues it will sing forever the glory of the Omnipotent Creator.
So I lie dreaming in my garret, while outside the wind falls with the fading light, and the chill wings of the snow brush across the window panes. As the shadows darken my eyes can no longer distinguish the book in my hand, but with my face on the page the human scent comes to my nostrils; is it I, or the story that is dying away into the night, that comes, that is here? I am in the forest, my prey eludes me in the long vistas, as I seem to stop and listen with a beating heart to the flight and the pursuit: my eyes slowly close, but they can pierce through the darkness; I am not asleep, the planets are looking at me through the window, I can almost touch the glass, and across the black arch without flashes one shooting star, then another,—a rain of jewels this November night; and I think of Cæsar and his comet,—perhaps that is the trail of his blood up yonder!
At dawn I am still there dreaming. It is Sunday; I hear the church bells, and their sound fills the whole house from cellar to garret with its vibrations, giving new life to my vagrant fancies, which spread themselves over poor old Paillard’s book. To my ear my dim little chamber resounds to the feet of armies, the wheels of chariots, and the tramp of war-steeds. The windows shake, my ears and my heart thrill with the sound, and I open my mouth to cry: “Ave Cæsar Imperator!”—when Florimond, who has come up and is looking out of the window, says with a loud yawn: “There is not a single soul to be seen in the street this morning,—it is as dull as ditch-water!”
XIV
HEALTH TO THE KING!
St. Martin’s Day,
November 11th.