Diogenes of London (collection)/The Shadow on the Year

HERE comes a day in the autumn season, and somewhere, I think, near the middle of September, when, at a sweep, the year unfolds its future. Till then it has lived at full strength, ominous of no failure through all its changes, with no menacing memento mori: with no doubt, no question, of its own absolute sufficiency. Virile even in its excesses, it has laid with an easy air the eternal forces of dissolution; so that we in its bosom have grown to forget them. So much of seeming power has there been in its lavish performance that we have never considered defeat. Yet upon this day of humiliation it is come, and the strong year bows to its mortality with silent resignation. What an abject to-day, and how proud but yesterday! It is strange the discovery should be so swift and so sudden; it comes in a flash to the year and those that trust in it. There is no quiet ebbing of the full life. The tide stands still, turns in the moment, and behold it racing seaward! This day is surely known to all of us. You remember that hour in the sudden gloaming when the miasma of the autumn crept through your nostrils. Last night it was a full moon, and looking from my window I saw the stars flicker out, and felt the cool air enwrap me. It was summer then, and I had the dreams of a summer night; there was a warmth in the blood of the earth, and its smile was sweet and gracious. One could lean over and listen to the year's fresh confidences; one saw its young thoughts upon its face. Nature was unsecretive, buoyant, overbearing. To-night she is grown older, and her age is on her sober visage. A little ago, as I passed into my garden to the roses, the dusk fell and I stumbled among the flower beds. A mist rose quickly from the quiet earth, and there was the savour of decay in my throat. There were roses here last night: I watched them from my window dipping in the breeze. But now I cannot find them; perhaps it is the dusk. Surely last night there were birds in the elms and the sweetbriar. I vow it was a thrush I heard calling to the moon for the lack of a nightingale. Now there is silence; the dreary mist is creeping higher, and I see the newly lighted street-lamps dimming in the haze. A chill is mounting in my bones. The tide is running seaward; the year is persuaded of death.

At this unexpected hour of her defeat is all evil triumphant. In one moment, as it were, the year sickens, and conscious of her destiny, falls to thinking on the grave. Through the breach in her fine vitality rise abysmal vapours of the underworld—out of the patient earth the fog and the deadly chill; nor shall anything prevail against them longer. Unto Nature is revealed now her own impotence, and she must henceforth go with her hand to her heart; stricken with she must limp forward to her tomb. It is long months since we knew her young and debonair, when each of her movements was tremulous with vigour, vivid with significance. How vain she was, how riotous, how merry! She did not spare her thews in the whirl, but drained all the pleasures. And yet she has worn the same gay front into her fuller maturity; she has been at one pitch till this collapse. And we have excused this extravagance, holding her justified by the grace of her very joyousness. Where are they now, those vivacious measures and that noble vanity? See this pitiful creature choking in the damp shadows, and take heed unto yourself. For our lives have been enclosed in hers; and her abasement, is it not also ours? We have laughed with her and have danced with her; with her too shall we not weep and become the poor ghosts of our younger selves? Nay, though we would not, we are so constrained; our blood has lost the quality of youth. The splendour has faded from the fabric of our dream, from the world is gone the charm that once held us intent upon the nearest pleasure. It is not only that your body carries the marks of another year, but one might say a certain elasticity of the mind dies year by year with Nature. You will not resume your occupations comfortably to-night. Do you think there is not a tinge of sadness in your laughter over your favourite humourist? Has not your study an air of melancholy? Your pictures speak of the vanity of this passing life. From your shelves a thousand still voices of your books summon you to the thought of final rest. To what end is this infinite trouble? Of a truth you are a weary soul fighting for you know not whether good or evil. In your accustomed chair your thoughts flow inwards, and you see the tissue of desires and aims you call yourself. If you can find in this moment one worthy aspiration, one feeling other than of clay, then shall you find the night a little clearer, the year a little younger. But your poignant introspection will perceive the weariness and the folly and the vanity of being. Your soul is cold and clammy; you think it on the brink of death, and cry out upon the horror of your creation. How meanly selfward now do all your habits show! how tiresome your slender virtues! how misspent your indulgences! It is but a few weeks since you had the disposition to pride yourself on life as a very sweet benevolence of God. Then you were sure of your footway—saw in it a swift, short path to golden gates. You mounted on your brave ambitions and soared to pinnacles, doubting not the good of them. Have you no questionings now, when one by one your stars have sailed into the mist? Should you ride now so high as those month-old thoughts, would you tremble and despair at the mortality of your office? would you suffer of surfeit and weariness? It would seem so on this grey autumn evening.

But perhaps you will not have these untoward thoughts. Perhaps these changes are but the prelude of divers new delights, and your chair is no seat of melancholy, but a place to forecast the corporeal pleasures of the winter. You may dwell upon the rich colours with a delicate thrill. You have the secret of survival, so, and are the proper denizen of this world, seeing your correspondence with Nature is so perfect. In truth it is an unwholesome spirit in which to take her decadence, which, since it has recurred through aeons, must be nobly wise. Is it so? Rots she towards perfection year by year? And is the whole universe mutable to a supreme glory?

It is a trifle changes us. A wind swaggering down the street has blown the drift into rags, and I see my stars again. They are still white and shining.