Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware (latest ebook reader TXT) 📖

altogether, nor in part, that of Paul, because he rolls through the city in a gilded chariot, with the attendance of a prince. I may blame or despise him--but not therefore reject his teaching. That has a defence independent of him. Policy, and necessity of time and place, have compelled him to much which his reason disapproves. This he has given me to believe, and has conjured me on this, as on all subjects, to yield my mind only to evidence, apart from all personal considerations. But I did not mean to turn our conversation in this direction. Here, Piso, have we now arrived in our walk at my favorite retreat. This is my bower for meditation, and frequently for reading too. Let us take this seat. Observe how through these openings we catch some of the prominent points of the city. There is the obelisk of Cleopatra; there the tower of Antonine', there the Egyptian Pyramid; and there a column going up in honor of Aurelian; and in this direction, the whole outline of the palace.'

'Yet are we at the same time shut out from all the world,' said I. 'Your hours must fly swiftly here. But are your musings always solitary ones?'

'O no--I am not so craving as that of my own society: sometimes I am joined by my mother, and not seldom by my sweet Fausta here,' said she, at the same time affectionately drawing Fausta's arm within her own, and clasping her hand; 'we do not agree, indeed, upon all the subjects which we discuss, but we still agree in our love.'

'Indeed we do, and may the gods make it perpetual; may death only divide us!' said Fausta with fervor.

'And may the divinity who sits supreme above,' said Julia, 'grant that over that, not even death shall have power. If any thing makes existence valuable, it is love. If I should define my happiness, I should say it in one word, Love. Without Zenobia, what should I be? I cannot conceive of existence, deprived of her, or of her regard. Loving her, and Fausta, and Longinus, as I do--not to forget Livia and the dear Faustula--and beloved of all in return--and my happiness scarcely seems to admit of addition.'

'With what pain,' said I, 'does one contemplate the mere possibility that affections such as these are to last only for the few years which make up the sum of human life. Must I believe, must you believe, that all this fair scene is to end forever at death? That you, bound to each other by so many ties, are to be separated, and both of you to be divided from Zenobia, and all of us to fall into nothingness, silence, and darkness? Rather than that, would that the life we now enjoy might be immortal! Here are beautiful objects, among which one might be willing to live forever. I am never weary of the moon and her soft light, nor of the balmy air, nor of the bright greens of the herbage, nor of the forms of plain and mountain, nor of the human beings, infinite in the varieties of their character, who surround me wherever I go. Here now have I wandered far from my home, yet in what society and in what scenes do I find myself! The same heaven is above me, the same forms of vegetable life around me? and what is more, friends already dear as those I have left behind. In this very spot, were it but as an humble attendant upon the greatness of the Queen, could I be content to dwell.'

'Truly, I think you might,' cried Fausta; 'having chosen for yourself so elysian a spot, and filled it with such inhabitants, it is no great proof of a contented spirit that you should love to inhabit it. But how many such spots does the world present?--and how many such inhabitants? The question I think is, would you be ready to accept the common lot of man as an immortal one? I can easily believe that many, were they seated in these gardens, and waited on by attendant slaves, and their whole being made soft and tranquil, and exempt from care and fear, would say, 'Ensure me this, and I ask no more.' For myself, indeed, I must say it would not be so. I think not even the lot of Zenobia, enthroned as she is in the hearts of millions, nor yet thine, Julia, beloved not less than Zenobia, would satisfy me. I have now all that my utmost desires crave. Yet is there a part of me, I know not what it is, nor where it is, that is not full. I confess myself restless and unsatisfied. No object, no study, no pursuit, no friendship--forgive me, Julia,'--and she kissed her hand,--'no friendship even, satisfies and fills me.'

'I do not wonder,' said Julia.

'But how much unhappiness is there spread over the earth,' continued Fausta: 'I, and you, and Piso perhaps too, are in a state of dissatisfaction. And yet we are perched, as it were, upon the loftiest heights of existence. How must it be with those who are so far inferior to us as multitudes are in their means of happiness? From how many ills are we shielded, which rain down sharp-pointed, like the hail storms of winter, upon the undefended heads of the poor and low? They, Piso, would not, I think, pray that their lot might be immortal.'

'Indeed I think not,' said I. 'Yet, perhaps, their lot is not so much more miserable than yours, as the difference in outward condition might lead one to think. Remember, the slave and the poor do not feel as you would, suddenly reduced to their state. The Arab enjoys his sleep upon his tent floor as well as you, Princess, beneath a canopy of woven gold, and his frugal meal of date or pulse tastes as sweet, as to you do dainties fetched from Rome, or fished from the Indian seas: and eating and sleeping make up much of life. Then the hearts of the great are corroded by cares and solicitudes which never visit the humble. Still, I do not deny that their condition is not far less enviable than ours. The slave who may be lashed, and tormented, and killed at his master's pleasure, drinks from a cup of which we never so much as taste. But over the whole of life, and throughout every condition of it, there are scattered evils and sorrows which pierce every heart with pain. I look upon all conditions as in part evil. It is only by selecting circumstances, and excluding ills which are the lot of all, that I could ask to live forever, even in the gardens of Zenobia.'

'I do not think we differ much then,' said Fausta, 'in what we think of human life. I hold the highest lot to be unsatisfying. You admit all are so, but have shown me that there is a nearer approach to an equality of happiness than I had supposed, though evil weighs upon all. How the mind longs and struggles to penetrate the mysteries of its being! How imperfect and without aim does life seem! Every thing beside man seems to reach its utmost perfection. Man alone appears a thing incomplete and faulty.'

'And what,' said I, 'would make him appear to you a thing perfect and complete' What change should you suggest?'

'That which rather may be called an addition,' replied Fausta, 'and which, if I err not, all wise and good men desire, the assurance of immortality. Nothing is sweet; every cup is bitter; that which we are this moment drinking from, bitterest of all, without this. Of this I incessantly think and dream, and am still tossed in a sea of doubt.'

'You have read Plato?' said I.

'Yes, truly,' she replied; 'but I found little there to satisfy me, I have enjoyed too the frequent conversation of Longinus, and yet it is the same. Would that he were now here! The hour is serene, and the air which comes in so gently from the West, such as he loves.'

As Fausta uttered these words, our eyes at the same moment caught the forms of Zenobia and Longinus, as they emerged from a walk very near, but made dark by overhanging and embowering roses. We immediately advanced toward them, and begged them to join us.

'We are conversing,' said Julia, 'upon such things as you both love. Come and sit now with us, and let us know what you can say upon the same themes.'

'We will sit with you gladly,' said the Queen; 'at least for myself I may say it, for I am sure that with you I shall find some other subjects discussed beside perplexing affairs of state. When alone with Longinus--as but now--our topic is ever the same.'

'If the subject of our discourse, however, be ever the same,' said the Greek, 'we have this satisfaction in reflecting upon it, that it is one that in its nature is real and tangible. The well-being of a nation is not an undefined and shadowy topic, like so many of those which occupy the time and thoughts of even the wise. I too, however, shall gladly bear a part in whatever theme may engross the thoughts of Julia, Fausta, and Piso.'

With these words, we returned to the seats we had left, which were not within the arbor of Julia, but were the marble steps which led to it. There we placed ourselves, one above and one beside another, as happened--Zenobia sitting between Fausta and Julia, I at the feet of Julia, and Longinus on the same step with myself, and next to Fausta. I could hardly believe that Zenobia was now the same person before whom I had in the morning, with no little agitation, prostrated myself, after the manner of the Persian ceremonial. She seemed rather like a friend whom I both loved and revered. The majesty of the Queen was gone; there remained only the native dignity of beauty, and goodness, and intellect, which, though it inspires reverence, yet is there nothing slavish in the feeling. It differs in degree only from that sentiment which we entertain toward the gods; it raises rather than depresses.

'We were speaking,' said Julia, resuming the subject which had engaged us, 'of life and of man--how unsatisfactory life is, and how imperfect and unfinished, as it were, man; and we agreed, I believe, in the opinion, that there can be no true happiness, without a certain assurance of immortality, and this we are without.'

'I agree with you,' said Longinus, 'in all that you can have expressed concerning the unsatisfactoriness of life, regarded as a finite existence, and concerning the want of harmony there is between man and the other works of God, if he is mortal; and in this also, that without the assurance of immortality, there can, to the thinking mind, be no true felicity. I only wonder that on the last point there should exist in the mind of any one of you doubts so serious as to give you much disturbance. I cannot, indeed, feel so secure of a future and then unending existence, as I am sure that I live now. What I am now I know; concerning the future, I can only believe, and belief can never possess the certainty of knowledge. Still, of a future life I entertain no doubts that distress me. My belief in it is as clear and strong as I can well conceive belief in things invisible and unexperienced to be. It is such as makes me happy in any thought or prospect of death. Without it, and life would appear to me like nothing more to be esteemed than a short, and often troubled or terrific dream.'

'So I confess it seems to me,' said Fausta. 'How should I bless the gods, if upon my mind there could rest a conviction of immortality strong like yours! The very certainty with which you speak, seems, through the power of sympathy, to have scattered some of my doubts. But, alas! they will soon return.'

'In what you have now said,' replied Longinus, 'and in the feeling you have expressed on this point, do I found one of the strongest arguments for the immortality of the soul.'

'I do not comprehend you,' said Fausta.

'Do you not, Fausta,' asked Longinus, 'intensely desire a life after death?'

'I do indeed. I have just expressed it.'

'And do not you too, Zenobia, and Piso, and Julia?'

'Surely, and with intensity,' we answered; 'the question need scarce be asked.'

'I believe you,' resumed Longinus. 'You all earnestly desire an immortal life--you perpetually dwell upon the thought of it, and long for it. Is it not so with all who reflect at all upon themselves? Are there any such, have there ever been any, who have not been possessed by the