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Zenobia

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'Yet are we at the same time shut out from all the world,' said I. 'Your
hours must fly swiftly here. But are your musings always solitary ones?'

'O no--I am not so craving as that of my own society: sometimes I am
joined by my mother, and not seldom by my sweet Fausta here,' said she, at
the same time affectionately drawing Fausta's arm within her own, and
clasping her hand; 'we do not agree, indeed, upon all the subjects which
we discuss, but we still agree in our love.'

'Indeed we do, and may the gods make it perpetual; may death only divide
us!' said Fausta with fervor.

'And may the divinity who sits supreme above,' said Julia, 'grant that
over that, not even death shall have power. If any thing makes existence
valuable, it is love. If I should define my happiness, I should say it in
one word, Love. Without Zenobia, what should I be? I cannot conceive of
existence, deprived of her, or of her regard. Loving her, and Fausta, and
Longinus, as I do--not to forget Livia and the dear Faustula--and beloved
of all in return--and my happiness scarcely seems to admit of addition.'

'With what pain,' said I, 'does one contemplate the mere possibility that
affections such as these are to last only for the few years which make up
the sum of human life. Must I believe, must you believe, that all this
fair scene is to end forever at death? That you, bound to each other by so
many ties, are to be separated, and both of you to be divided from
Zenobia, and all of us to fall into nothingness, silence, and darkness?
Rather than that, would that the life we now enjoy might be immortal! Here
are beautiful objects, among which one might be willing to live forever. I
am never weary of the moon and her soft light, nor of the balmy air, nor
of the bright greens of the herbage, nor of the forms of plain and
mountain, nor of the human beings, infinite in the varieties of their
character, who surround me wherever I go. Here now have I wandered far
from my home, yet in what society and in what scenes do I find myself! The
same heaven is above me, the same forms of vegetable life around me? and
what is more, friends already dear as those I have left behind. In this
very spot, were it but as an humble attendant upon the greatness of the
Queen, could I be content to dwell.'

'Truly, I think you might,' cried Fausta; 'having chosen for yourself so
elysian a spot, and filled it with such inhabitants, it is no great proof
of a contented spirit that you should love to inhabit it. But how many
such spots does the world present?--and how many such inhabitants? The
question I think is, would you be ready to accept the common lot of man as
an immortal one? I can easily believe that many, were they seated in these
gardens, and waited on by attendant slaves, and their whole being made
soft and tranquil, and exempt from care and fear, would say, 'Ensure me
this, and I ask no more.' For myself, indeed, I must say it would not be
so. I think not even the lot of Zenobia, enthroned as she is in the hearts
of millions, nor yet thine, Julia, beloved not less than Zenobia, would
satisfy me. I have now all that my utmost desires crave. Yet is there a
part of me, I know not what it is, nor where it is, that is not full. I
confess myself restless and unsatisfied. No object, no study, no pursuit,
no friendship--forgive me, Julia,'--and she kissed her hand,--'no
friendship even, satisfies and fills me.'

'I do not wonder,' said Julia.

'But how much unhappiness is there spread over the earth,' continued
Fausta: 'I, and you, and Piso perhaps too, are in a state of
dissatisfaction. And yet we are perched, as it were, upon the loftiest
heights of existence. How must it be with those who are so far inferior to
us as multitudes are in their means of happiness? From how many ills are
we shielded, which rain down sharp-pointed, like the hail storms of
winter, upon the undefended heads of the poor and low? They, Piso, would
not, I think, pray that their lot might he immortal.'

'Indeed I think not,' said I. 'Yet, perhaps, their lot is not so much
more miserable than yours, as the difference in outward condition might
lead one to think. Remember, the slave and the poor do not feel as you
would, suddenly reduced to their state. The Arab enjoys his sleep upon
his tent floor as well as you, Princess, beneath a canopy of woven gold,
and his frugal meal of date or pulse tastes as sweet, as to you do
dainties fetched from Rome, or fished from the Indian seas: and eating
and sleeping make up much of life. Then the hearts of the great are
corroded by cares and solicitudes which never visit the humble. Still, I
do not deny that their condition is not far less enviable than ours. The
slave who may be lashed, and tormented, and killed at his master's
pleasure, drinks from a cup of which we never so much as taste. But over
the whole of life, and throughout every condition of it, there are
scattered evils and sorrows which pierce every heart with pain. I look
upon all conditions as in part evil. It is only by selecting
circumstances, and excluding ills which are the lot of all, that I could
ask to live forever, even in the gardens of Zenobia.'

'I do not think we differ much then,' said Fausta, 'in what we think of
human life. I hold the highest lot to be unsatisfying. You admit all are
so, but have shown me that there is a nearer approach to an equality of
happiness than I had supposed, though evil weighs upon all. How the mind
longs and struggles to penetrate the mysteries of its being! How imperfect
and without aim does life seem! Every thing beside man seems to reach its
utmost perfection. Man alone appears a thing incomplete and faulty.'

'And what,' said I, 'would make him appear to you a thing perfect and
complete' What change should you suggest?'

'That which rather may be called an addition,' replied Fausta, 'and which,
if I err not, all wise and good men desire, the assurance of immortality.
Nothing is sweet; every cup is bitter; that which we are this moment
drinking from, bitterest of all, without this. Of this I incessantly think
and dream, and am still tossed in a sea of doubt.'

'You have read Plato?' said I.

'Yes, truly,' she replied; 'but I found little there to satisfy me, I have
enjoyed too the frequent conversation of Longinus, and yet it is the same.
Would that he were now here! The hour is serene, and the air which comes
in so gently from the West, such as he loves.'

As Fausta uttered these words, our eyes at the same moment caught the
forms of Zenobia and Longinus, as they emerged from a walk very near, but
made dark by overhanging and embowering roses. We immediately advanced
toward them, and begged them to join us.

'We are conversing,' said Julia, 'upon such things as you both love.
Come and sit now with us, and let us know what you can say upon the
same themes.'

'We will sit with you gladly,' said the Queen; 'at least for myself I may
say it, for I am sure that with you I shall find some other subjects
discussed beside perplexing affairs of state. When alone with
Longinus--as but now--our topic is ever the same.'

'If the subject of our discourse, however, be ever the same,' said the
Greek, 'we have this satisfaction in reflecting upon it, that it is one
that in its nature is real and tangible. The well-being of a nation is
not an undefined and shadowy topic, like so many of those which occupy
the time and thoughts of even the wise. I too, however, shall gladly
bear a part in whatever theme may engross the thoughts of Julia, Fausta,
and Piso.'

With these words, we returned to the seats we had left, which were not
within the arbor of Julia, but were the marble steps which led to it.
There we placed ourselves, one above and one beside another, as
happened--Zenobia sitting between Fausta and Julia, I at the feet of Julia,
and Longinus on the same step with myself, and next to Fausta. I could
hardly believe that Zenobia was now the same person before whom I had in
the morning, with no little agitation, prostrated myself, after the manner
of the Persian ceremonial. She seemed rather like a friend whom I both
loved and revered. The majesty of the Queen was gone; there remained only
the native dignity of beauty, and goodness, and intellect, which, though
it inspires reverence, yet is there nothing slavish in the feeling. It
differs in degree only from that sentiment which we entertain toward the
gods; it raises rather than depresses.

'We were speaking,' said Julia, resuming the subject which had engaged us,
'of life and of man--how unsatisfactory life is, and how imperfect and
unfinished, as it were, man; and we agreed, I believe, in the opinion,
that there can be no true happiness, without a certain assurance of
immortality, and this we are without.'

'I agree with you,' said Longinus, 'in all that you can have expressed
concerning the unsatisfactoriness of life, regarded as a finite existence,
and concerning the want of harmony there is between man and the other
works of God, if he is mortal; and in this also, that without the
assurance of immortality, there can, to the thinking mind, be no true
felicity. I only wonder that on the last point there should exist in the
mind of any one of you doubts so serious as to give you much disturbance.
I cannot, indeed, feel so secure of a future and then unending existence,
as I am sure that I live now. What I am now I know; concerning the future,
I can only believe, and belief can never possess the certainty of
knowledge. Still, of a future life I entertain no doubts that distress me.
My belief in it is as clear and strong as I can well conceive belief in
things invisible and unexperienced to be. It is such as makes me happy in
any thought or prospect of death. Without it, and life would appear to me
like nothing more to be esteemed than a short, and often troubled or
terrific dream.'

'So I confess it seems to me,' said Fausta. 'How should I bless the gods,
if upon my mind there could rest a conviction of immortality strong like
yours! The very certainty with which you speak, seems, through the power
of sympathy, to have scattered some of my doubts. But, alas! they will
soon return.'

'In what you have now said,' replied Longinus, 'and in the feeling you
have expressed on this point, do I found one of the strongest arguments
for the immortality of the soul.'

'I do not comprehend you,' said Fausta.

'Do you not, Fausta,' asked Longinus, 'intensely desire a life
after death?'

'I do indeed. I have just expressed it.'

'And do not you too, Zenobia, and Piso, and Julia?'

'Surely, and with intensity,' we answered; 'the question need scarce
be asked.'

'I believe you,' resumed Longinus. 'You all earnestly desire an immortal
life--you perpetually dwell upon the thought of it, and long for it. Is
it not so with all who reflect at all upon themselves? Are there any
such, have there ever been any, who have not been possessed by the same
thoughts and desires, and who, having been greatly comforted and
supported by them during life, have not at death relied upon them, and
looked with some degree of confidence toward a coming forth again from
death? Now I think it is far more reasonable to believe in another life,
than in the delusiveness of these expectations. For I cannot suppose
that this universal expectation will be disappointed, without believing
in the wickedness, nay, the infinite malignity, of the Supreme Ruler,
which my whole nature utterly refuses to do. For what more cruel, than
to create this earnest and universal longing, and not gratify it? Does
it not seem so?'

We all admitted it.

'This instinctive desire,' continued Longinus, 'I cannot but regard as
being implanted by the Being who created us. It can proceed from no other.
It is an instinct, that is, a suggestion or inspiration of God. If it
could be shown to be a consequence of education, we might refer it for its
origin to ingenious philosophers. But it exists where the light of
philosophy has never shone. There have been none, of whom history has
preserved even obscurest traditions, who have wanted this instinct. It is
then the very inspiration of the Divinity, and will not be disappointed. I
trust much to these tendencies of our nature. This is the best ground for
our belief of a God. The arguments of the schools have never succeeded in
establishing the truth, even to the conviction of a philosophic mind, much
less a common one. Yet the truth is universally admitted. God, I think,
has provided for so important an article of faith in the structure of our
minds. He has not left it to chance or special Revelation. So, too, the
determinations of the mind concerning virtue and vice, right and wrong,
being for the most part so accordant throughout the whole race--these also
I hold to be instinctive.'

'I can think of nothing,' said Fausta, 'to urge against your argument. It
adds some strength, I cannot but confess, to what belief I had before. I
trust you have yet more that you can impart. Do not fear that we shall be
dull listeners.'

'I sit here a willing and patient learner,' said Zenobia, 'of any one who
will pour new light into my mind. Go on, Longinus.'

'To such a school,' said he, 'how can I refuse to speak? Let me ask you
then, if you have never been perplexed by the evils of life, such as
either you have yourselves experienced, or such as you have witnessed?'

'I have, indeed,' said Fausta, 'and have deeply deplored them. But how
are they connected with a future existence?'

'Thus,' replied Longinus. 'As in the last case, the benevolence of the
Supreme God cannot be sustained without the admission of the reality of a
future life. Nor only that, but it seems to me direct proof may be adduced
from the existence and universality of these evils to establish the
blackest malignity. So that to me, belief in a future existence is in
proportion to the difficulty of admitting the idea of divine malignity,
and it cannot therefore be much stronger than it is.'

'How can you make that clear to us?' said Fausta; 'I should truly rejoice
if out of the evils which so darken the earth, any thing good or beautiful
could be drawn.'

'As this dark mould,' rejoined the philosopher, 'sends upwards, and out of
its very heart, this rare Persian rose, so does hope grow out of evil, and
the darker the evil the brighter the hope, as from a richer and fouler
soil comes the more vigorous plant and larger flower. Take a particular
evil, and consider it. You remember the sad tale concerning the Christian
Probus, which Piso, in recounting the incidents of his journey from Rome
to Palmyra, related to us while seated at the tables?'

'Indeed, I did not hear it,' said Zenobia; 'so that Piso must, if he will,
repeat it.'

'We shall willingly hear it again,' said Julia and Fausta.

And I then related it again.

'Now do you wonder,' resumed Longinus, when I had finished, 'that Probus,
when, one after another, four children were ravished from his arms by
death, and then, as if to crown his lot with evil, his wife followed them,
and he was left alone in the world, bereaved of every object to which his
heart was most fondly attached, do you wonder, I say, that he turned to
the heavens and cursed the gods? And can you justify the gods so that they
shall not be chargeable with blackest malignity, if there be no future and
immortal state? What is it to bind so the heart of a parent to a child, to
give that affection a force and a tenderness which belong to no other tie,
so that anxieties for its life and welfare, and cares and sacrifices for
its good, constitute the very existence of the parent, what is it to
foster by so many contrivances this love, and then forever disappoint and
blast it, but malignity? Yet this work is done every hour, and in almost
every heart; if for children we lament not, yet we do for others as dear.'

Tears to the memory of Odenatus fell fast from the eyes of Zenobia.

'Are we not then,'--continued Longinus, without pausing--'are we not then
presented with this alternative, either the Supreme God is a malignant
being, whose pleasure it is to torment, or, there is an immortal state,
where we shall meet again with those, who, for inscrutable purposes, have
been torn from our arms here below? And who can hesitate in which to rest?
The belief, therefore, in a future life ought to be in proportion to the
difficulty of admitting the idea of divine malignity. And this idea is so
repulsive--so impossible to be entertained for one moment--that the other
cannot, it seems to me, rest upon a firmer foundation.'

'Every word you speak,' said Zenobia, 'yields pleasure and instruction. It
delights me, even when thickest beset by the cares of state, to pause and
contemplate for a moment the prospects of futurity. It diffuses a divine
calm throughout the soul. You have given me new food for my thoughts.'

'I will add,' said Longinus, 'only one thing to what I have said, and
that is, concerning the incompleteness of man, as a divine work, and
which has been mentioned by Fausta. Is not this an argument for a future
life? Other things and beings are finished and complete--man only is
left, as it were, half made up. A tree grows and bears fruit, and the end
of its creation is answered. A complete circle is run. It is the same
with the animals. No one expects more from a lion or a horse than is
found in both. But with man it is not so. In no period of history, and
among no people, has it been satisfactorily determined what man is, or
what are the limits of his capacity and being. He is full of
contradictions, and of incomprehensible organization, if he is considered
only in relation to this world. For while every other affection finds and
rests in its appropriate object, which fully satisfies and fills it, the
desire of unlimited improvement and of endless life--the strongest and
best defined of any of the desires--this alone is answered by no
corresponding object: which is not different from what it would be, if
the gods should create a race like ours, having the same craving and
necessity for food and drink, yet never provide for them the one nor the
other, but leave them all to die of hunger. Unless there is a future
life, we all die of a worse hunger. Unless there is a future life, man is
a monster in creation--compared with other things, an abortion--and in
himself, and compared with himself, an enigma--a riddle--which no human
wit has ever solved, nor can ever hope to solve.'

'This seems unanswerable,' said Fausta; 'yet is it no objection to all
such arguments, which we ourselves construct, that the thing they
establish is too great and good almost to be believed, without some divine
warrant? It does to me appear almost or quite presumptuous to think, that
for me there is by the gods prepared a world of never-fading light, and a
never-ending joy.'

'When,' replied the Greek, 'we look at the lower forms of man which fall
under our observation, I confess that the objection which you urge strikes
me with some force. But when I think that it is for beings like you to
whom I speak, for whom another and fairer world is to be prepared, it
loses again much of its force. And when I think of the great and good of
other times, of Homer and Hesiod, of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Socrates
and Plato, and of what the mind of man has in them, and in others as great
and good, accomplished, the objection which you urge loses all its force.
I see and feel that man has been made not altogether unworthy of a longer
life and a happier lot than earth affords. And in regard to the ignorant,
the low, and the almost or quite savage, we are to consider that the same
powers and affections are in them as in us, and that their inferiority to
us is not intrinsic and essential, but as it were accidental. The
difference between the soul of Plato and yonder Ethiopian slave is not in
any original faculty or power; the slave here equals the philosopher; but
in this, that the faculties and powers of Plato were strengthened, and
nurtured, and polished, by the hand of education, and the happy influences
of a more civilized community, all which to the slave has been wanting. He
is a diamond just as it comes from the mine; Plato like that one set in
gold, which sparkles with the radiance of a star, Fausta, upon your
finger. But, surely, the glory of the diamond is, that it is a diamond;
not that Demetrius has polished and set it. Man has within him so much of
the god, that I do not wonder he has been so often deified. The great and
excellent among men, therefore, I think not unworthy of immortality, for
what they are; the humble and the bad, for what they may so easily become,
and might have been, under circumstances but slightly altered.'

'I cannot,' said Julia, as Longinus closed, 'deny strength and
plausibility to your arguments, but I cannot admit that they satisfy me.
After the most elaborate reasoning, I am still left in darkness. No power
nor wit of man has ever wholly scattered the mists which rest upon life
and death. I confess, with Socrates, that I want a promise or a revelation
to enable me to take the voyage of life in a spirit of cheerfulness, and
without the fear of fatal shipwreck. If your reasonings, Longinus, were
only accompanied with authority more than that of man, if I could only
believe that the Divinity inspired you, I could then rest contented and
happy. One word authoritatively declaring man's immortality, a word which
by infallible token I could know to be a word from the Supreme, would to
me be worth infinitely more than all the conjectures, hopes, and
reasonings of all the philosophers. I fully agree with you, that the
instincts of our nature all point both to a God and to immortality. But
the heart longs for something more sure and clear, at least my woman's
heart does. It may be that it is the woman within me which prompts the
feeling--but I wish to lean upon authority in this great matter. I wish to
repose calmly in a divine assurance.'

'In that, Princess,' I could not help saying, 'I am a woman too. I have
long since lost all that regard for the gods in which I was so carefully
nourished. I despise the popular superstitions. Yet is there nothing
which I have found as yet to supply their place. I have searched the
writings of Plato, of Cicero, of Seneca, in vain. I find there, indeed,
wisdom, and learning, and sagacity, almost more than human. But I find
nothing which can be dignified by the name of religion. Their systems of
morals are admirable, and sufficient perhaps to enable one to live a
happy or fortunate life. But concerning the soul of man, and its destiny,
they are dumb, or their words, if they utter any, are but the dark
speeches of an oracle.'

'I am happy that I am not alone,' said Julia; 'and I cannot but think that
many, very many, are with me. I am sure that what most persons, perhaps,
who think and feel upon those subjects, want, is some divine promise or
revelation. Common minds, Longinus, cannot appreciate the subtlety of
your reasonings, much less those of the Phædo. And, besides, the cares
and labors of life do not allow time to engage in such inquiries, even if
we supposed all men to have capacity for them. Is it not necessary that
truths relating to the soul and futurity should rest upon authority, if
any or many beside philosophers are to embrace them? And surely, if the
poor and ignorant are immortal, it is as needful for them, as for us, to
know it. It is, I conceive, on this account, that the religion of the
Christians has spread so rapidly. It meets our nature. It supplies
authority. It professes to bring annunciations from Heaven of man's
immortality.'

'It is for that reason,' replied Longinus, 'I cannot esteem it. The very
term revelation offends. The right application of reason effects all, it
seems to me, that what is called revelation can. It perfectly satisfies
the philosopher, and as for common minds, instinct is an equally
sufficient guide and light.'

'I cannot but judge you, Longinus,' said Julia, 'wanting in a true
fellow-feeling for your kind, notwithstanding all you have said concerning
the nature and powers of man. How is it that you can desire that mankind
should remain any longer under the dominion of the same gross and
pernicious errors that have for so many ages oppressed them! Only consider
the horrors of an idolatrous religion in Egypt and Assyria, in Greece and
in Rome--and do you not desire their extermination?--and what prospect of
this can there be, but through the plain authoritative language of a
revelation?'

'I certainly desire with you,' replied Longinus, 'the extermination of
error, and the overthrow of horrible and corrupting superstitions; and of
nothing am I more sure than that the reason of man, in unfolding and
constantly improving ages, will effect it. A plain voice from Heaven,
announcing important truth, might perhaps hasten the work. But this voice,
as thought to be heard in Christianity, is not a plain voice, nor clearly
known to be a voice from Heaven. Here is the Bishop of Antioch set upon by
the Bishops of Alexandria and Cesarea, and many others, as I learn, who
accuse him of wrongly receiving and falsely teaching the doctrines of
Christ; and for two hundred years has there prevailed the like uncertainty
about the essence of the religion.'

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