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I could see the beautiful faces of their occupants, could hear their wild songs, and the sweet music of

'Ladies' laughter coming through the air.'

Oh, that singing and gayest laughter ringing out on the boundless air! as if a thousand singing-birds from Paradise had been let fly in the upper ether. It is hushed now, but its tones are in my ear as I write.

Amid all the gaiety and life of landscape and the air, I could not divert my thoughts from my recent rencontre with Mr. Smith, and that awkward business of the fence. So much did it weigh upon my mind that I mentioned the circumstance to my family at the tea-table. My son Newton, who was something of a mathematical genius, proposed to measure the territory in dispute himself. He returned, bringing intelligence which gave me fresh perplexity. The lot had shrunk at least twelve inches; and not only that, he found our own had diminished in a like ratio. He had scarcely finished speaking when a neighbor rushed in, and with some confusion related the observation of a similar phenomenon at his own residence, and ended by declaring that the Day of Judgment must be at hand. I was somewhat alarmed at these reports, although I did not heed his conclusion, as he was a Millerite, and had been accustomed to predict the same thing every month for ten years past. We went into the streets together. The town was quiet, the streets brilliantly illuminated, and the usual crowd of gay promenaders thronged the sidewalks and filled the shops of fashionable resort. As yet the alarm had not spread to any extent; or, if a few whispered their fears of some approaching calamity, not many heard or heeded; or, thinking it an idle tale of the Millerites, took no trouble to investigate for themselves, and laughed at the credulous. As for myself, being rather perplexed than terrified, and not caring to incur ridicule by expressing my own apprehensions, I returned home, and passed the report off to my family as another panic of the confounded Millerites. Yet I was far from being satisfied myself; and all the long night I slept little, or, if I did, dreamed the wildest dreams that ever entered human imagination.

At one time I stood alone upon a vast arid plain, stretching away illimitably on every side, and above it the sky, not pellucid and expansive, but like a dead convexity of copper spanning the desolate plain. And as I stood there, methought the sky of copper seemed to near me, and the vast plain to shrink. And so it did till it was no longer sky and plain, but a most fearful prison, whose walls I could almost reach by putting out my hand, and the air grew close and stifling; and with a strange feeling of compression I awoke. Again, I was far out in space, supported only by a boulder, or, as it seemed, a meteoric stone, which drove fearfully along, whirling, meanwhile, rapidly on its axis-turning and shooting in a dizzy maze, till I was sick with giddiness.

When morning came, there was no longer any room for doubt that some strange change was passing in nature. As the sun rose, and men came forth to their labor, and shops were opened, and the rattle of machinery began to break the stillness, the reports of the evening before gained ground. They spread from mouth to mouth, till half the villagers, now

moved by an indefinable terror, ran hither and thither, measuring and re-measuring, and telling the results with the wildest looks of wonder. By noon, none felt any restraint in acknowledging their fears. Indeed, there was no longer need of measurement by rule or chain, for the shrinking of house-lots, the streets, and even the dwellings, was apparent to the eye. I shall never forget the frenzied confusion of that day. Dwellings and work-shops poured out their denizens, and the streets were filled with an excited and wonder-struck mass. Tradesmen, with pale faces and trembling limbs, stood in their door-ways telling that their shops had shrunk-ay, seemed even to be shrinking as they spoke. Farmers came running in, crying out that as they ploughed in the fields, the earth seemed to stiffen and grow hard-was almost impervious to the plough. Sailors from the river swore that the water was falling away from the banks; and one, who had just bathed, declared that the water buoyed him up in spite of his efforts to sink below the surface.

Going, about this time, to the large village common, I found it occupied by an assemblage of kneeling figures, dressed in long white robes, with pasteboard crowns on their heads. They were shouting, and beating the air and ground with extravagant gestures. And ever as they beat the air, they sang in wildest voices :

'IF you get there before I do,
Just tell 'em I'm a-coming too,
To play on the golden harp,
To play on the golden ha-arp,
To play on the golden harp.'

The chorus was caught up again and again by the excited multitude, and flung up to the sky in most passionate tones. It was a band of Millerites, and I should think there was nearly an acre of them.

As the day wore on, fresh reports brought fresh wonder and terror, until every man stood aghast and speechless, waiting for further developments. It was now four o'clock, I remember, and the air-express that brought the hourly edition of the city papers came whizzing through the atmosphere. When the mail was opened, I seized the Aerial Telegraph eagerly, though with an instinctive dread. I had hoped and believed that this strange phenomenon was entirely local; that this shrinking of the earth and houses might be attributed to some sectional agitation beneath the surface of the earth, some hitherto unknown convulsion, more terrible than the earthquake, indeed, but yet not general. How was my hope dashed, and my wildest speculations out-jumped, when the following paragraph met my eye:

'APPALLING PHENOMENA!

MOST TERRIBLE RUIN IMPENDING!

'JUST as we are going to press with the tenth edition of to-day, (circulation one million!) confirmed accounts reach us of fearful phenomena, with which we have been unwilling heretofore to alarm our readers. Every where, the fields, highways, and all standing on the surface of the earth, seem to be shrinking and growing smaller. Our city has not escaped. The streets have become visibly narrower since yesterday. The water in the docks is sinking, the town is filled with frightened faces, the air is dolorous with notes of woe. Since the Act of the one hundred and thirtieth Congress that every man should shave his head, our city has not been thrown into such a tumult. The

'College of Scientific Men' has convened in all haste to investigate and devise a remedy. They have brought to light the almost forgotten theory of philosophers, that the earth is so porous that if adequate pressure were applied, it could be condensed into the space of A SQUARE FOOT!" In spite of their assumed composure, it is evident they are perplexed and terrified. The people are awaiting the result of their investigations with an impatience amounting almost to madness. Further particulars at five o'clock.

'P. S. This announcement has crowded out our editorial on the civil war in Patagonia. We merely state that Gen. AUGHFULTOP, the leader of the republican forces, has completely routed the insurgents in a pitched battle.'

As I read, the words seemed to burn into my brain. I saw it all. In the omnipotence of GOD, the 'adequate pressure' was being applied, and the world was doomed; its beautiful fields, busy cities, restless oceans, and millions of men, all fated to perish! Stupefied, and terrified almost to insanity, I ran through the streets to my own dwelling, and ascended the observatory. Family, friends, almost life itself, were forgotten, in the all-pressing thought of ruin. Darkness came, and hour after hour I sat listless and inattentive; only always was the horrid truth burning my brain, the inarticulate murmurs of despair from the village beneath me filling my ears; but above, the silent, pure stars rode on, as peerless and tranquil as when first they sang together. The many pleasure-balloons had sunk to the earth, as the event proved, never more to rise in airy flight.

So I sat there, enveloped in gloom; only startled from my reverie when the air-couriers bringing the mail from the city hourly drove along, marking their course by the rockets which from time to time they sent blazing into the night, announcing their arrival to some village or hamlet, when they dropped its quota of mail, and then went, like winged, firebreathing steeds, whizzing on their way. Many a night before I had watched them, seeming to trace their paths among the stars, as quickwinged, fire-heralded messengers of science; but to-night, as hourly they sent up their flaming signals, flying over town, lake, lowland and mountain, gleaming and irradiating the darkness, till their light was mingled `with the northern stars, I could only look upon them as flying fiends, avant-couriers of doom, confirming woe and ruin. What announcements they brought I cared not to know. Every thing, alas! was too clear to me already the earth and all its inhabitants were to be crushed, compressed to annihilation. And to add to my terror, the thought was ever present with me that I alone, of all men, should live. By some mysterious power, I should be exempt - should see the earth grow smaller and still less should stand the last of men upon the last of earth. So wore away the dismal night.

Morning broke with unusual magnificence. As the sun mounted the orient, and threw his first beams upon the vast map of cultivated country within my view, upon the many villages, upon the homes of wealth and luxury, and for many miles upon the winding river, and spires, domes, and monuments, and the calm water grew radiant and golden in the reflected light, I thought I had never beheld a sight so glorious. But the pomp and splendor of the sun, moving upward with such calm strength —a symbol of eternal endurance-seemed to me a terrible mockery of the boastful earth, now shrinking into nothingness. And how changed the landscape! True, it lay in all its accustomed loveliness; but it was the beauty of a dream. The hush of desolation was on

it. There were now no more sounds of awakening industry; no harvesters in the field; no busy clatter of engines in the factories; no clamor of ponderous machinery along the river shore.

The morning brought sad confirmation of my fears. Expresses reported the same phenomenon every where every where the same terrorIn the third morning edition of the Aërial Telegraph I read the following:

THE WORLD DOOMED!!'

'DURING the night, we received such special dispatches from nearly every quarter of the globe as leave us in no farther doubt of the nature of the calamity impending over us. Yesterday, the same startling appearances were observed at Lima, at San Francisco, and Astoria; and by a dispatch over the Bhering Straits and Asiatic Line we obtain similar reports from London, and the principal European cities, as well as from Pekin, Singapore, Bagdad, Timbuctoo, and Cape Town. In this city, the streets are narrowing steadily; every thing is shrinking. The 'College' is utterly confounded, and the people, despairing of aid from it, have grown wild in robbery, debauchery, and recklessness of life.

'We are requested to state, in behalf of the committee for celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Louisville, where the armies of the Union achieved such a splendid victory over the Disunionists, that the celebration will not take place to-morrow, as arranged, but is postponed indefinitely.'

In our own village the scene was now pitiful. The process of condensation had gone on rapidly during the night, and the change was now striking. All business and occupation were dead for ever. Men stood listlessly in their door-ways, or wandered distractedly up and down the streets, or, collecting in little groups on the corners, conversed in trembling whispers. Little children left their hoops and marbles on the pavement, stole silently to their mothers' side, and in their haggard faces learned to dread the unknown calamity.

But why need I detail all the horror, the sleepless nights and hopeless days of the approaching ruin? Gradually and slowly, but surely, day by day, the fields and streams narrowed and shrank, the houses neared each other, crushed together, and fell hugging the hardening earth. On the thirtieth day, the river that ran by the village had become a mere thread, the farms had shrunken fearfully, the streets were narrow paths, and the houses were fast sinking into the ground. Then, too, began to be shadowed the most fearful, the last act in the drama of annihilation. Every one but myself had complained for days of an increasing weariness, an inability to move freely or lift their feet from the ground, of a pressure that was crushing them, of a power that was irresistibly sucking them toward the centre of the earth. These sensations were known to me only by observation. I did not understand them, and I do not now know why the human race was not crushed and buried in the first instant; why they were left in such lingering agony. I thought it a miracle then, and do now. Day by day, hour by hour, I watched the destruction of my race. Soon men could no longer move; the weakest could not support themselves upright; then the strongest sank powerless; till, finally, all were held bound immovable to the earth. I have reason to believe that most were unconscious of this terrible death, for a merciful Providence had taken away the light of reason, and the world for days had been a world of maniacs. Yet, to see the poor idiots turn smiling faces up to

a truer and deeper affection when manhood came.

She bends still lower

to part away the hair from my feverish forehead, and a soft curl touches my cheek. How the vision maddens me when I awake! Awake to what?

The earth had diminished to a very small compass. The sun did not now rise and set, but was fixed overhead; and the fact was past doubt that the earth was whirling on its axis with increased rapidity, and I with it, round and round, describing a circle continually lessening. From this time, recollection is confused. I remember that the rotation of the earth was accelerated every hour, every moment. In my rapid whirling, the sun seemed no longer a globe, but a band of flame encircling the sky, and the stars slender threads of parallel light. The centrifugal form was evidently, in relation to myself, overcoming the centripetal; my hold on the earth was loosened, and the next instant I was hurled-shot like a rocket-afar into space. With what a delicious, delirious sensation I sank down, down; or rather, to drop the word down as not applicable to space, I floated onward. I was free! The untamed Tartar was not more so. The gray eagle never knew so bold and daring a flight. My spirits rose in unbounded exhilaration, as if I had tasted the elixir of life. The heaviness of earthy clods was no longer about my feet, but I moved in the pure ether like a spirit.

The novelty of my situation for a time wrapped me in astonishment : alone, unsupported, floating out in that vague, indefinable space I had longed all my life to fathom. I had become as one of the nightly host that used to look down so pityingly on me when on the earth; a brother to the stars! To my unobstructed sight, the vast multitude of worlds were visible-around, near me, or glimmering in the far, soundless depths. Looking back, I could not distinguish the earth; but the wild moon yet wandered, widowed, through the heavens. For a time my course seemed in a straight line, and I moved very swiftly. But at length I felt other influences at work upon me. My speed was considerably diminished. I was drawn hither and thither, turned this way and that, I suppose by the conflicting attractions of the sun and stars. Soon these influences also ceased, or rather became harmonized, and I moved on steadily and rapidly. This motion has never changed. From my limited. knowledge of astronomy and the position of the heavenly bodies, (quorum pars magna sum,) I think I am in what we used to call our system,' moving in a vast circle round the sun. I consider my situation desirable one, unless I should enter a complaint on account of the extreme scarcity of provisions. But men are mere creatures of habit. I have become a planet. I don't know but I am as contented to be a planet as to be shut out from the light of day, and the sight of God's fields and stars, by grates of iron and stony-hearted keepers.

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HERE the manuscript ends, or rather runs into insane ravings about freedom, and the bliss of the planetary state. Then follow interjections, dashes, blots, and mere disjointed insane sentences, which the present editor can in no wise decipher: nor does he care to.

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