Even Where Your Best Affections Are Concerned, And You,
Prudent Preachers, "Hold Hard" And Turn Aside When They Come Near
The Mysteries Of The Happy State, And We (Prudent Preachers Too),
We Will Hush Our Voices, And Never Reveal To Finite Beings The Joys
Of The "Earthly Paradise."
CHAPTER XXVIII - PASS OF THE LEBANON
"The ruins of Baalbec!" Shall I scatter the vague, solemn thoughts
and all the airy phantasies which gather together when once those
words are spoken, that I may give you instead tall columns and
measurements true, and phrases built with ink? No, no; the
glorious sounds shall still float on as of yore, and still hold
fast upon your brain with their own dim and infinite meaning.
Come! Baalbec is over; I got "rather well" out of that.
The path by which I crossed the Lebanon is like, I think, in its
features to one which you must know, namely, that of the Foorca in
the Bernese Oberland. For a great part of the way I toiled rather
painfully through the dazzling snow, but the labour of ascending
added to the excitement with which I looked for the summit of the
pass. The time came. There was a minute in the which I saw
nothing but the steep, white shoulder of the mountain, and there
was another minute, and that the next, which showed me a nether
heaven of fleecy clouds that floated along far down in the air
beneath me, and showed me beyond the breadth of all Syria west of
the Lebanon. But chiefly I clung with my eyes to the dim,
steadfast line of the sea which closed my utmost view. I had grown
well used of late to the people and the scenes of forlorn Asia -
well used to tombs and ruins, to silent cities and deserted plains,
to tranquil men and women sadly veiled; and now that I saw the even
plain of the sea, I leapt with an easy leap to its yonder shores,
and saw all the kingdoms of the West in that fair path that could
lead me from out of this silent land straight on into shrill
Marseilles, or round by the pillars of Hercules to the crash and
roar of London. My place upon this dividing barrier was as a man's
puzzling station in eternity, between the birthless past and the
future that has no end. Behind me I left an old, decrepit world;
religions dead and dying; calm tyrannies expiring in silence; women
hushed and swathed, and turned into waxen dolls; love flown, and in
its stead mere royal and "paradise" pleasures. Before me there
waited glad bustle and strife; love itself, an emulous game;
religion, a cause and a controversy, well smitten and well
defended; men governed by reasons and suasion of speech; wheels
going, steam buzzing - a mortal race, and a slashing pace, and the
devil taking the hindmost - taking ME, by Jove (for that was my
inner care), if I lingered too long upon the difficult pass that
leads from thought to action.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 156 of 170
Words from 81833 to 82343
of 89094
