“Irrevocably?” repeated Rochester, whom the thought reduced almost to despair. “More, I see it. You have become ambitious; the vainglory of the world, the fatal infatuation of its honors, have taken possession even of the soul of Thomas More! Your heart no longer responds to mine; your ear remains deaf to all my solicitations! Ah! well, since the desire of being honored among men, and to have them grovel at your feet, has made even you despise my counsel and advice, then listen, listen well, and God grant that I may be able to destroy in your heart the poison that pride has poured into it! You are willing to sacrifice to your vanity all the happiness, all the quiet and peace, of your future; know, then, what recompense will be meted out to you. Yesterday Wolsey was in a manner driven from his palace, and descended the Thames in a common boat, Cromwell alone accompanying him; for all have deserted him except his enemies, who, in order to enjoy his calamities, crowded the river in boats and followed after him. They hoped to see him arrested and carried to the Tower, the report having been circulated that he would be taken there. Wolsey—he whom you have so often seen make his appearance in Parliament, surrounded by an almost royal pomp and splendor—is now a fugitive, alone, abandoned, without defence, of the clamorous insults and bitter scorn of a populace always eager to feast their eyes on the ruins of fallen greatness. The air around him resounded with their maledictions. ‘Here is the man who fattened on the blood of the poor,’ they cried. ‘The taxes will be reduced now,’ exclaimed others, ‘since he will have no farther use for palaces and gardens’; and all, in their ignorance, abused him as the cause of the wrongs and oppressions which it was probably not in his power to have averted. At length, overwhelmed with insults and outrages, he was landed at Pultney, and, in order to escape the mob, was hurriedly conducted to his house at Asher, where he has been banished. Such is the reward you will receive in the service of an avaricious prince and a blind infatuated multitude!”
He paused, overcome by anxiety and excitement.
“My dear Fisher,” responded More, deeply moved, “our hearts and thoughts are always in unison; you have only represented to me a second time the picture I had already painted myself.”
“Indeed!” cried Rochester; “and do you still hesitate?”
“What!” replied More, resolutely, “and does it require so much hesitation to sacrifice one’s self? I would not wish to live dishonored; and I should consider myself guilty if I forgot my duty toward my sovereign and the honor of England!”
“So you are resolved! Ah! well, let your sacrifice be accomplished,” said the saintly bishop; “but then may God, whose goodness is infinite, hear my vows and grant my prayer: may the same dangers unite us; side by side with you may my last sigh be breathed out with yours; and if the life of the aged man is not extinguished before that of the man in his prime, then may the stroke of death cut us down at the same moment!”
“My dear friend,” cried More, “the many years that have passed over your head and blanched your locks have not yet ripened your judgment, since you can believe it possible that the king’s anger, although it may one day fall on me, could ever be permitted to overtake you, the counsellor of his youth, whom he has so often called his father! No, I can conceive of no such fearful possibility; the wise, the virtuous Bishop of Rochester can never be involved in the misfortune that would crush Thomas More.”
“Ah!” replied Fisher, “but I shall understand how to call down on my head the vengeance with which he may hesitate to strike me. Believe me, More, a man scarcely reaches the prime of life before he feels himself, as it were, daily beginning to fail. Just as in the autumn days the sun’s light rapidly diminishes, so the passing years despoil his body of physical strength and beauty; but it has no effect upon his soul. The heart—no, the heart never grows old! It loves, it suffers, as in the early morning of life; and when at last it has reached the age when wisdom and experience have destroyed the illusions of the passions, friendship, strengthened by so many blessed memories, reigns there alone and entire, like a magnificent flower that has been sheltered and preserved from the destroying worm.
“Having almost arrived at the end of his career, he often takes a survey of the road he has passed over. He loves to recall his joys and his sorrows, and to weep again for the friends he has lost. I know that presumptuous youth imagines that the prudence he refuses to obey is the only good that remains after the labors of life have been terminated by time.
“Your feelings are not in unison with those of an old man. It is because you do not understand them. He lives in memory, and you in hope. You pursue a phantom, a chimera, the nothingness of which he has already experienced; you accuse him, he complains of you, and often you do not deign to regard the last bitter tear that is drawn from him at the sight of the tomb into which he must soon descend.”