Short Fiction Edgar Allan Poe (books for men to read .txt) đ
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
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Death!
MonosHow strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I observe, too, a vacillation in your stepâ âa joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all heartsâ âthrowing a mildew upon all pleasures!
UnaAh, Death, the spectre which sat at all feasts! How often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human blissâ âsaying unto it âthus far, and no farther!â That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosomsâ âhow vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first upspringing, that our happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas! as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus, in time, it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.
MonosSpeak not here of these griefs, dear Unaâ âmine, mine, forever now!
UnaBut the memory of past sorrowâ âis it not present joy? I have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.
MonosAnd when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will be minute in relating allâ âbut at what point shall the weird narrative begin?
UnaAt what point?
MonosYou have said.
UnaMonos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of lifeâs cessationâ âbut commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.
MonosOne word first, my Una, in regard to manâs general condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our forefathersâ âwise in fact, although not in the worldâs esteemâ âhad ventured to doubt the propriety of the term âimprovement,â as applied to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution, when arose some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obviousâ âprinciples which should have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws, rather than attempt their control. At long intervals some masterminds appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a retro-gradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic intellectâ âthat intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of allâ âsince those truths which to us were of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that analogy which speaks in proof tones to the imagination alone and to the unaided reason bears no weightâ âoccasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his soul. And these men, the poets, living and perishing amid the scorn of the âutilitariansââ âof rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the scornedâ âthese men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were keenâ âdays when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was happinessâ âholy, august and blissful days, when blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored.
Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days. The great âmovementââ âthat was the cant termâ âwent on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Artâ âthe Artsâ âarose supreme, and, once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of Godâ âin despite of the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading all things in Earth and Heavenâ âwild attempts at an omni-prevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evilâ âKnowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the farfetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste aloneâ âthat faculty which, holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely have been disregardedâ âit was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the ÎŒÎżÏ ÏÎčÎșη which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for
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