Part 11 (2/2)

Are they like us, I wonder in the timid hope of some reward, some sugar with the drug? do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked?

It may be, and yet G.o.d knows what they should look for. Even while they look, even while they repent, the foot of man treads them by thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives are heating in the den of the vivisectionist;[15] or the dew falls, and the generation of a day is blotted out. For these are creatures, compared with whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity.

And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror[16] and under the imminent hand of death, G.o.d forbid it should be man the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--G.o.d forbid it should be man that wearies in well-doing,[17] that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: Surely not all in vain.[18]

NOTES

During the year 1888, part of which was spent by Stevenson at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks he published one article every month in _Scribner's Magazine_. _Pulvis et Umbra_ appeared in the April number, and was later included in the volume _Across the Plains_ (1892). He wrote this particular essay with intense feeling. Writing to Sidney Colvin in December 1887, he said, ”I get along with my papers for _Scribner_ not fast, nor so far specially well; only this last, the fourth one.... I do believe is pulled off after a fas.h.i.+on. It is a mere sermon: ... but it is true, and I find it touching and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it; I might have called it a _Darwinian Sermon_, if I had wanted. Its sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe.”

(_Letters_, II, 100.) Writing to Miss Adelaide Boodle in April 1888, he said, ”I wrote a paper the other day--_Pulvis et Umbra_;--I wrote it with great feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in G.o.d or pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it troubles folk too much: all have not the same digestion nor the same sight of things.... Well, I cannot take back what I have said; but yet I may add this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that it may be--to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth--surely of all things it makes this world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral side--but the great battle and the breathing times with their refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, it is not ugly, and it is filled with promise.” (_Letters_, II, 123.) The words _Pulvis et Umbra_ mean literally ”dust and shadow”: the phrase, however, is quoted from Horace ”pulvis et umbra sumus”--_we are dust and ashes_. It forms the text of one of Stevenson's familiar discourses on Death, like _Aes Triplex_.

[Note 1: _Find them change with every climate_, etc. For some striking ill.u.s.trations of this, see Sudermann's drama, _Die Ehre_ (Honour).]

[Note 2: NH3 and H2O. The first is the chemical formula for ammonia: the second, for water.]

[Note 3: _That way madness lies. King Lear_, III, 4, 21.]

[Note 4: _A pediculous malady ... locomotory_. Stevenson was fond of strange words. ”Pediculous” means covered with lice, lousy.]

[Note 5: _The heart of his mystery. Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 2, ”you would pluck out the heart of my mystery.” Mystery here means ”secret,”

as in I. _Cor_. XIII, ”Behold, I tell you a mystery.”]

[Note 6: _The thought of duty_. Kant said, ”Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: _the starry heavens above and the moral law within_.” (Conclusion to the _Practical Reason_--_Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_, 1788.)]

[Note 7: _a.s.siniboia ... Calumet_. a.s.sinibioia is a district of Canada, just west of Manitoba. _Calumet_ is the pipe of peace, used by North American Indians when solemnizing treaties etc. Its stem is over two feet long, heavily decorated with feathers etc.]

[Note 8: _Drowns her child in the sacred river_. The sacred river of India is the Ganges; before British control, children were often sacrificed there by drowning to appease the angry divinity.]

[Note 9: _The touch of pity_. ”No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.” _Richard III_, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 71. _This enn.o.bled lemur_.

A lemur is a nocturnal animal, something like a monkey.]

[Note 10: _A new doctrine_. Evolution. Darwin's _Origin of Species_ was published in 1859. Many ardent Christians believe in its general principles to-day; but at first it was bitterly attacked by orthodox and conservative critics. A Princeton professor cried, ”Darwinism is Atheism!”]

[Note 11: _Cultus_. Stevenson liked this word. _The swarming ant_.

”The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.”--_Proverbs_, x.x.x. 25. For a wonderful description of an ant battle, see Th.o.r.eau's _Walden_.]

[Note 12: _Everest_. Mount Everest in the Himalayas, is the highest mountain in the world, with an alt.i.tude of about 29,000 feet.]

[Note 13: _The whole creation groaneth. Romans_, VIII, 22.]

[Note 14: _That double law of the members_. See Note 10 of Chapter VI above.]

[Note 15: _Den of the vivisectionist_. See Note 2 of Chapter VI above.]

[Note 16: _In our isle of terror_. Cf. Herriet, _The White Island_.

”In this world, the isle of dreams, While we sit by sorrow's streams, Tears and terrors are our themes.”]

[Note 17: _Man that wearies in well-doing. Galatians_, VI, 9.]

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