Astronomy for Amateurs Part 23

And yet, let us dwell on it, since this reality is the most evident demonstration of the ideal; since what exists is you, is all of us, is _Life_; and matter is only its substance, like the materials of a house, and even less so, since its particles only pa.s.s rapidly through the framework of our bodies. A heap of stones does not make a house.

Quintillions of tons of materials would not represent the Earth or any other world.

Yes, what really exists, what const.i.tutes a complete orb, is the city of Life. Let us recognize that the flower of life flourishes on the surface of our planet, embellis.h.i.+ng it with its perfume; that it is just this life that we see and admire,--of which we form part,--and which is the _raison d'etre_ of things; that matter floats, and crosses, and crosses back again, in the web of living beings,--and the reality, the goal, is not matter--it is the life matter is employed upon.

Yes, matter pa.s.ses, and being also, after sharing in the concerted symphony of life.

And indeed everything pa.s.ses rapidly!

What irrepressible grief, what deep melancholy, what ineffaceable regrets we feel, when as age comes on we look back, when we see our friends fallen upon the road one after the other, above all when we visit the beloved scenes of our childhood, those homes of other years, that witnessed our first start in terrestrial existence, our first games, our first affections--those affections of childhood that seemed eternal--when we wander over those fields and valleys and hills, when we see again the landscape whose aspect has hardly changed, and whose image is so intimately linked with our first impressions. There near this fireside the grandfather danced us on his knee, and told us blood-curdling stories; here the kind grandmother came to see if we were comfortably tucked in, and not likely to fall out of the big bed; in this little wood, along these alleys that seemed endless, we spread our nets for birds; in this stream we fished for crayfish; there on the path we played at soldiers with our elders, who were always captains; on these slopes we found rare stones and fossils, and mysterious petrifactions; on this hill we admired the fine sunsets, the appearance of the stars, the form of the constellations. There we began to live, to think, to love, to form attachments, to dream, to question every problem, to breathe intellectually and physically. And now, where is this beloved grandfather? the good grandmother? where are all whom we knew in infancy? where are our dreams of childhood? Winged thoughts still seem to flutter in the air, and that is all. People, caresses, voices, all have gone and vanished. The cemetery has closed over them all. There is a silent void. Were all those fine and sunny hours an illusion? Was it only to weep one day over this negation that our childish hearts were so tenderly attached to these fleeting shadows? Is there nothing, down the long length of human history, but eternal delusion?

It is here, above all, that we find ourselves in presence of the greatest problems. Life is the goal, it is Life that produces the conditions of Thought. Without Thought, where would be the Universe?

We feel that without life and thought, the Universe would be an empty theater, and Astronomy itself, sublime science, a vain research. We feel that this is the truth, veiled as yet to actual science, and that human races kindred with our own exist there in the immensities of s.p.a.ce. Yes, we _feel_ that this is truth.

But we would fain go a little further in our knowledge of the universe, and penetrate in some measure the secret of our destinies. We would know if these distant and unknown Humanities are not attached to us by mysterious cords, if our life, which will a.s.suredly be extinguished at some definite moment here below, will not be prolonged into the regions of Eternity.

A moment ago we said that nothing is left of the body. Millions of organisms have lived, there are no remains of them. Air, water, smoke, dust. _Memento, h.o.m.o, quia pulvis es et in pulverem revertebis._ Remember oh man! that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, says the priest to the faithful, when he scatters the ashes on the day after the carnival.

The body disappears entirely. It goes where the corpse of Caesar went an hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an end! That would be too gross a decoy.

If the soul were also to disappear in smoke, what would be left of the vital and intellectual organization of the world? Nothing.

On this hypothesis, _all_ would be reduced to _nothing_.

Our reason is not immense, our terrestrial faculties are sufficiently limited, but this reason and these faculties suffice none the less to make us feel the improbability, the absurdity, of this hypothesis, and we reject it as incompatible with the sublime grandeur of the spectacle of the universe.

Undoubtedly, Creation does not seem to concern itself with us. It proceeds on its inexorable course without consulting our sensations.

With the poet we regret the implacable serenity of Nature, opposing the irony of its smiling splendor to our mourning, our revolts, and our despair.

Que peu de temps suffit pour changer toutes choses!

Nature au front serein, comme vous...o...b..iez!

Et comme vous brisez dans vos metamorphoses Les fils mysterieux ou nos coeurs sont lies.

D'autres vont maintenant pa.s.ser ou nous pa.s.sames; Nous y sommes venus, d'autres vont y venir, Et le songe qu'avaient ebauche nos deux ames, Ils le continueront sans pouvoir le finir.

Car personne ici-bas ne termine et n'acheve; Les pires des humains sont comme les meilleurs; Nous nous eveillons tous au meme endroit du reve: Tout commence en ce monde et tout finit ailleurs.

Repondez, vallon pur, repondez, solitude!

O Nature, abritee en ce desert si beau, Quand nous serons couches tous deux, dans l'att.i.tude Que donne aux morts pensifs la forme du tombeau,

Est-ce que vous serez a ce point insensible, De nous savoir perdus, morts avec nos amours, Et de continuer votre fete paisible Et de toujours sourire et de chanter toujours?[16]

_Note.--Free Translation._

How brief a time suffices for all things to change! Serene-fronted Nature, too soon you will forget!... in your metamorphoses ruthlessly snapping the cords that bind our hearts together!

Others will pa.s.s where we pa.s.s; we have arrived, and others will arrive after us: the thought sketched out by our souls will be pursued by theirs ... and they will not find the solution of it.

For no one here begins or finishes: the worst are as the best of humans; we all awake at the same moment of the dream: we all begin in this world, and end otherwhere.

Reply, sweet valley, reply, solitude; O Nature, sheltering in this splendid desert, when we are both asleep, and cast by the tomb into the att.i.tude of pensive death.

Will you to the last verge be so insensible, that, knowing us lost, and dead with our loves, you will pursue your cheerful feast, and smile, and sing always?

Yes, mortals may say that when they are sleeping in the grave, spring and summer will still smile and sing; husband and wife may ask themselves if they will meet again some day, in another sphere; but do we not _feel_ that our destinies can not be terminated here, and that short of absolute and final nonent.i.ty for everything, they must be renewed beyond, in that starry Heaven to which every dream has flown instinctively since the first origins of Humanity?

As our planet is only a province of the Infinite Heavens, so our actual existence is only a stage in Eternal Life. Astronomy, by giving us wings, conducts us to the sanctuary of truth. The specter of death has departed from our Heaven. The beams of every star shed a ray of hope into our hearts. On each sphere Nature chants the paean of Life Eternal.

THE END