The reiterated warning is again given in vain. The demon of ambition then appears to him under the form of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stir him like the cannon's roar, the trumpet's call; he yields to the temptation, and the Guardian Angel pleads no more! He determines to become great, renowned, to rule over men: political power is to console him for the domestic ruin he has spread around him, in having preferred the dreams of his own excited imagination, to the love and faith of the simple but tender heart which God had confided to him in the holy bonds of marriage. The love and deification of self in the delusive show of military or political glory, is the lowest and last temptation into which a noble soul can fall, for individual fame is preferred to God's eternal justice, and men are willing to die, if only laurel crowned, with joy and pride even in a bad cause.
In the beginning of the third part of the comedy we are introduced into the 'new world.' The old world, with its customs, prejudices, oppressions, charities, laws, has been almost destroyed. The details of the struggle, which must have been long and dreadful, are not given to us; they are to be divined. Several years are supposed to have passed between the end of the second and the beginning of the third part, and we are called to witness the triumphs of the victors, the tortures of the vanquished. The character of the idol of the people is an admirable conception. All that is negative and destructive in the revolutionary tendencies of European society, is skilfully seized upon, and incarnated in a single individual. His mission is to destroy. He possesses a great intellect, but no heart. He says: "Of the blood we shed to-day, no trace will be left to-morrow." In corroboration of this conception of the character of a modern reformer, it is well known that most of the projected reforms of the last century have proceeded from the brains of logicians and philosophers.
This man of intellect succeeds in grasping power. His appearance speaks his character. His forehead is high and angular, his head entirely bald, his expression cold and impassible, his lips never smile—he is of the same type as many of the revolutionary leaders during the French reign of terror. His name is Pancratius, which name, from the Greek, signifies the union of all material or brutal forces. It is not by chance that he has received this name. The profound truth in which this character is conceived is also manifested in his distrust of himself, in his hesitation. As he is acting from false principles, he cannot deceive himself into that enthusiastic faith with which he would fain inspire his disciples. He confides in Leonard, because he is in possession of this precious quality.
His monologue is very fine; perhaps it stands next in rank to that of Hamlet. It opens to us the strange secrets of the irresolution and vacillation which have always characterized the men who have been called upon by fate alone to undertake vast achievements. In proof of this, it is well known that Cromwell was anxious to conceal the doubts and fears which constantly harassed him. It was these very doubts and fears which led him to see and resee so frequently the dethroned Charles, and which at last drove the conscience-stricken Puritan into the sepulchre of the decapitated king, that he might gaze into the still face of the royal victim, whose death he had himself effected. Did the sad face of the dead calm the fears of the living?
It is well known, that Danton addressed to himself the most dreadful reproaches. Even, at the epoch of his greatest power, Robespierre was greatly annoyed because he could not convince his cook of the justice and permanence of his authority. Men who are sent by Providence only to destroy, feel within them the worm which gnaws forever: it constantly predicts to them, in vague but gloomy presentiments, their own approaching destruction.
A feeling of this nature urges Pancratius to seek an interview with his most powerful enemy, 'The Man;' he is anxious to gain the confidence of his adversary, because he cannot feel certain of his own course while a single man of intellectual power exists capable of resisting his ideas. In the interview which occurs between the two antagonistic leaders of the Past and Future, the various questions which divide society, literature, religion, philosophy, politics, are discussed. Is it not a profound truth that in the real world also, mental encounters always precede material combats; that men always measure their strength, spirit to spirit, before they meet in external fact, body to body? The idea of bringing two vast systems face to face through living and highly dramatic personifications, is truly great, suggestive, and original.
But as the Truth is neither in the camp of Pancratius nor in the feudal castle of the count, our hero, the victory will profit neither party!
The opening of the last act is exceedingly beautiful. No painter could reproduce on canvas the sublime scenery sketched in its prologue; more gloomy than the pictures of Ruysdael, more sombre than those of Salvator Rosa. Before describing the inundation of the masses, our author naturally recalls the traditions of the Flood. The nobles, the representatives of the Past, with their few surviving adherents, have taken refuge in their last stronghold, the fortress of the Holy Trinity, securely situated upon a high and rocky peak overhanging a deep valley, surrounded and hedged in by steep cliffs and rocky precipices. Through these straits and passes once howled and swept the waters of the deluge. As wild an inundation is now upon them, for the valley is almost filled with the living surges of the myriads of the 'New Men,' who are rolling their millions into its depths. But everything is hidden from view by an ocean of heavy vapor, wrapping the whole landscape in its white, chill, clinging shroud. The last and only banner of the Cross now raised upon the face of the earth, streams from the highest tower of the castle of the Holy Trinity; it alone pierces through and floats above the cold, vague, rayless heart of the sea of mist—nought save the mystic symbol of God's love to man soars into the unclouded blue of the infinite sky!
After frequent defeats, after the loss of all hope, the hero, wishing to embrace for the last time his sick and blind son, sends for the precocious boy, whose death-hour is to strike before his own. I doubt if the scene which then occurs has, in the whole range of fiction and poetry, ever been surpassed. This poor boy, the son of an insane mother and a poet-father, is gifted with supernatural faculties, endowed with second or spiritual sight. Entirely blind, and consequently surrounded by perpetual darkness, it mattered not to him if the light of day or the gloom of midnight was upon the earth; and in his rayless wanderings he had made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults, which were lying far below the foundations of the castle, and which had for centuries served as places of torture, punishment, and death to the enemies of his long and noble line. In these secret charnel houses were buried the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs around and above them lay the bones of their oppressors. The unfortunate and fragile boy, the last sole scion of a long line of ancestry, had there met the thronging and complaining ghosts of past generations. Burdened with these dreadful secrets, when his vanquished father seeks him to embrace him for the last time, he shudderingly hints to him of fearful knowledge, and induces his parent to accompany him into the subterranean caverns. He then recounts to him the scenes which are passing before his open vision among the dead. The spirits of those who had been chained, tortured, oppressed, or victimized by his ancestors appear before him, complaining of past cruelties. They then form a mystic tribunal to try their old masters and oppressors; the scenes of the dreadful Day of Judgment pass before him; the unhappy and loving boy at last recognizes his own father among the criminals; he is dragged to that fatal bar, he sees him wring his hands in anguish, he hears his dreadful groans as he is given over to the fiends for torture—he hears his mother's voice calling him above, but, unwilling to desert his father in his anguish, he falls to the earth in a deep and long fainting fit, while the wretched father hears his own doom pronounced by that dread but unseen tribunal: 'Because thou hast loved nothing, nor revered aught but thyself and thine own thoughts, thou art damned to all eternity!'
It is true this scene is very brief, but, rapid as the lightning's flash, it lasts long enough to scathe and blast, breaking the darkness but to show the surrounding horror, to deepen into despair the fearful gloom. Although of the most severe simplicity, it is sublime and terrible. It is so concise that our hearts actually long for more, unwilling to believe in the reality of the doom of that ghostly tribunal. It repeats the awful lessons of Holy Writ, and our conscience awakes to our deficiencies, while the marrow freezes in our bones as we read.