{"id":10325,"date":"2010-05-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-04T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/thenewatlantis.com\/publications\/the-new-adam-and-eve"},"modified":"2020-09-26T14:06:24","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T18:06:24","slug":"the-new-adam-and-eve","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/publications\/the-new-adam-and-eve","title":{"rendered":"The New Adam and Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"> .gutenberg-content table td:nth-child(2n) { background-color: white; padding-left: 30px; } .gutenberg-content table td { vertical-align: top; padding: 7px 0 20px 0; } .gutenberg-content table tr { border-width: 0; } .gutenberg-content table { font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; border-width: 0; }<\/style>\n\n<div class=\"lazyblock-epigraph-1isXeO wp-block-lazyblock-epigraph\"><div class=\"block-tna-editors-note md:mx-6 lg:mx-16 py-8 px-10 mb-6 bg-almost-white\">\r\n        <div class=\"font-bold text-lg text-center mb-2\">\r\n        Editor&#8217;s Note      <\/div>\r\n    \t<div class=\"text-lg leading-relaxed\">\r\n\t  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/collections\/nathaniel-hawthorne-and-the-spirit-of-science\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-14335 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner-640x256.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner-640x256.png 640w, https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner-1280x511.png 1280w, https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner-1536x614.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner-600x240.png 600w, https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hawthorne-Series-Banner-cropped-for-web-banner.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This critical edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s short story is accompanied by the essay \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/publications\/artful-by-nature\">Artful by Nature<\/a>\u201d by Charles T. Rubin.<\/p>\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n\n<table style=\"width: 100%;\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\"><span>W<\/span>e who are born into the world\u2019s artificial system can never adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of man. Art has become a second and stronger nature; she is a stepmother, whose crafty tenderness has taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations of our true parent. It is only through the medium of the imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which we call truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible what prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good Father Miller\u2019s interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The Day of Doom has burst upon the globe and swept away the whole race of men. From cities and fields, seashore and midland mountain region, vast continents, and even the remotest islands of the ocean, each living thing is gone. No breath of a created being disturbs this earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man, and all that he has accomplished, the footprints of his wanderings and the results of his toil, the visible symbols of his intellectual cultivation and moral progress \u2014 in short, every thing physical that can give evidence of his present position \u2014 shall remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to inherit and repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a new Adam and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development of mind and heart, but with no knowledge of their predecessors nor of the diseased circumstances that had become encrusted around them. Such a pair would at once distinguish between art and nature. Their instincts and intuitions would immediately recognize the wisdom and simplicity of the latter; while the former, with its elaborate perversities, would offer them a continual succession of puzzles.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref1\" title=\"ftnref1\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn1\">1*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Let us attempt, in a mood half sportive and half thoughtful, to track these imaginary heirs of our mortality through their first day\u2019s experience. No longer ago than yesterday the flame of human life was extinguished; there has been a breathless night; and now another morn approaches, expecting to find the earth no less desolate than at eventide.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>It is dawn. The east puts on its immemorial blush, although no human eye is gazing at it; for all the phenomena of the natural world renew themselves, in spite of the solitude that now broods around the globe. There is still beauty of earth, sea, and sky, for beauty\u2019s sake. But soon there are to be spectators. Just when the earliest sunshine gilds earth\u2019s mountain tops, two beings have come into life, not in such an Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, but in the heart of a modern city. They find themselves in existence, and gazing into one another\u2019s eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they perplex themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their first consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged from a past eternity. Thus content with an inner sphere which they inhabit together, it is not immediately that the outward world can obtrude itself upon their notice.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Soon, however, they feel the invincible necessity of this earthly life, and begin to make acquaintance with the objects and circumstances that surround them. Perhaps no other stride so vast remains to be taken as when they first turn from the reality of their mutual glance to the dreams and shadows that perplex them every where else.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cSweetest Eve, where are we?\u201d exclaims the new Adam; for speech, or some equivalent mode of expression, is born with them, and comes just as natural as breath. \u201cMethinks I do not recognize this place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cNor I, dear Adam,\u201d replies the new Eve. \u201cAnd what a strange place, too! Let me come closer to thy side and behold thee only; for all other sights trouble and perplex my spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cNay, Eve,\u201d replies Adam, who appears to have the stronger tendency towards the material world; \u201cit were well that we gain some insight into these matters. We are in an odd situation here. Let us look about us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Assuredly there are sights enough to throw the new inheritors of earth into a state of hopeless perplexity. The long lines of edifices, their windows glittering in the yellow sunrise, and the narrow street between, with its barren pavement tracked and battered by wheels that have now rattled into an irrevocable past! The signs, with their unintelligible hieroglyphics! The squareness and ugliness, and regular or irregular deformity of every thing that meets the eye! The marks of wear and tear, and unrenewed decay, which distinguish the works of man from the growth of nature! What is there in all this, capable of the slightest significance to minds that know nothing of the artificial system which is implied in every lamp post and each brick of the houses? Moreover, the utter loneliness and silence, in a scene that originally grew out of noise and bustle, must needs impress a feeling of desolation even upon Adam and Eve, unsuspicious as they are of the recent extinction of human existence. In a forest, solitude would be life; in a city, it is death.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>8<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>The new Eve looks round with a sensation of doubt and distrust, such as a city dame, the daughter of numberless generations of citizens, might experience if suddenly transported to the garden of Eden. At length her downcast eye discovers a small tuft of grass, just beginning to sprout among the stones of the pavement; she eagerly grasps it, and is sensible that this little herb awakens some response within her heart. Nature finds nothing else to offer her. Adam, after staring up and down the street without detecting a single object that his comprehension can lay hold of finally turns his forehead to the sky. There, indeed, is something which the soul within him recognizes.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>9<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cLook up yonder, mine own Eve,\u201d he cries; \u201csurely we ought to dwell among those gold-tinged clouds or in the blue depths beyond them. I know not how nor when, but evidently we have strayed away from our home; for I see nothing hereabouts that seems to belong to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>10<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cCan we not ascend thither,\u201d inquires Eve.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>11<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWhy not?\u201d answers Adam, hopefully. \u201cBut no; something drags us down in spite of our best efforts. Perchance we may find a path hereafter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>12<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>In the energy of new life it appears no such impracticable feat to climb into the sky. But they have already received a woful lesson, which may finally go far towards reducing them to the level of the departed race, when they acknowledge the necessity of keeping the beaten track of earth. They now set forth on a ramble through the city, in the hope of making their escape from this uncongenial sphere. Already in the fresh elasticity of their spirits they have found the idea of weariness. We will watch them as they enter some of the shops and public or private edifices; for every door, whether of alderman or beggar, church or hall of state, has been flung wide open by the same agency that swept away the inmates.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>13<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>It so happens \u2014 and not unluckily for an Adam and Eve who are still in the costume that might better have befitted Eden \u2014 it so happens that their first visit is to a fashionable dry goods store. No courteous and importunate attendants hasten to receive their orders; no throng of ladies are tossing over the rich Parisian fabrics. All is deserted; trade is at a stand still; and not even an echo of the national watchword, \u201cGo ahead!\u201d disturbs the quiet of the new customers. But specimens of the latest earthly fashions, silks of every shade, and whatever is most delicate or splendid for the decoration of the human form, lie scattered around, profusely as bright autumnal leaves in a forest. Adam looks at a few of the articles, but throws them carelessly aside with whatever exclamation may correspond to \u201cPish!\u201d or \u201cPshaw!\u201d in the new vocabulary of nature. Eve, however, \u2014 be it said without offence to her native modesty, \u2014 examines these treasures of her sex with somewhat livelier interest. A pair of corsets chance to lie upon the counter; she inspects them curiously, but knows not what to make of them. Then she handles a fashionable silk with dim yearnings, thoughts that wander hither and thither, instincts groping in the dark.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>14<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cOn the whole, I do not like it,\u201d she observes, laying the glossy fabric upon the counter. \u201cBut, Adam, it is very strange. What can these things mean? Surely I ought to know; yet they put me in a perfect maze.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>15<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cPoh! my dear Eve, why trouble thy little head about such nonsense?\u201d cries Adam, in a fit of impatience. \u201cLet us go somewhere else. But stay; how very beautiful! My loveliest Eve, what a charm you have imparted to that robe by merely throwing it over your shoulders!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>16<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>For Eve, with the taste that nature moulded into her composition, has taken a remnant of exquisite silver gauze and drawn it around her form, with an effect that gives Adam his first idea of the witchery of dress. He beholds his spouse in a new light and with renewed admiration; yet is hardly reconciled to any other attire than her own golden locks. However, emulating Eve\u2019s example, he makes free with a mantle of blue velvet, and puts it on so picturesquely that it might seem to have fallen from heaven upon his stately figure. Thus garbed they go in search of new discoveries.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>17<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>They next wander into a Church, not to make a display of their fine clothes, but attracted by its spire, pointing upwards to the sky, whither they have already yearned to climb. As they enter the portal, a clock, which it was the last earthly act of the sexton to wind up, repeats the hour in deep reverberating tones; for Time has survived his former progeny, and, with the iron tongue that man gave him, is now speaking to his two grandchildren. They listen, but understand him not. Nature would measure time by the succession of thoughts and acts which constitute real life, and not by hours of emptiness. They pass up the church aisle, and raise their eyes to the ceiling. Had our Adam and Eve become mortal in some European city, and strayed into the vastness and sublimity of an old cathedral, they might have recognized the purpose for which the deep-souled founders reared it. Like the dim awfulness of an ancient forest, its very atmosphere would have incited them to prayer. Within the snug walls of a metropolitan church there can be no such influence.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>18<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Yet some odor of religion is still lingering here, the bequest of pious souls, who had grace to enjoy a foretaste of immortal life. Perchance they breathe a prophecy of a better world to their successors, who have become obnoxious to all their own cares and calamities in the present one.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref19\" title=\"ftnref19\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn19\">19*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cEve, something impels me to look upward,\u201d says Adam; \u201cbut it troubles me to see this roof between us and the sky. Let us go forth, and perhaps we shall discern a Great Face looking down upon us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>20<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cYes; a Great Face, with a beam of love brightening over it, like sunshine,\u201d responds Eve. \u201cSurely we have seen such a countenance somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>21<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>They go out of the church, and kneeling at its threshold give way to the spirit\u2019s natural instinct of adoration towards a beneficent Father. But, in truth, their life thus far has been a continual prayer. Purity and simplicity hold converse at every moment with their Creator.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>22<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>We now observe them entering a Court of Justice. But what remotest conception can they attain of the purposes of such an edifice? How should the idea occur to them that human brethren, of like nature with themselves, and originally included in the same law of love which is their only rule of life, should ever need an outward enforcement of the true voice within their souls? And what, save a woful experience, the dark result of many centuries, could teach them the sad mysteries of crime? O, Judgment Seat, not by the pure in heart wast thou established, nor in the simplicity of nature; but by hard and wrinkled men, and upon the accumulated heap of earthly wrong. Thou art the very symbol of man\u2019s perverted state.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>23<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>On as fruitless an errand our wanderers next visit a Hall of Legislature, where Adam places Eve in the Speaker\u2019s chair, unconscious of the moral which he thus exemplifies. Man\u2019s intellect, moderated by Woman\u2019s tenderness and moral sense! Were such the legislation of the world there would be no need of State Houses, Capitols, Halls of Parliament, nor even of those little assemblages of patriarchs beneath the shadowy trees, by whom freedom was first interpreted to mankind on our native shores.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref24\" title=\"ftnref24\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn24\">24*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Whither go they next? A perverse destiny seems to perplex them with one after another of the riddles which mankind put forth to the wandering universe, and left unsolved in their own destruction. They enter an edifice of stern gray stone standing insulated in the midst of others, and gloomy even in the sunshine, which it barely suffers to penetrate through its iron grated windows. It is a prison. The jailer has left his post at the summons of a stronger authority than the sheriff\u2019s. But the prisoners? Did the messenger of fate, when he shook open all the doors, respect the magistrate\u2019s warrant and the judge\u2019s sentence, and leave the inmates of the dungeons to be delivered by due course of earthly law? No; a new trial has been granted in a higher court, which may set judge, jury, and prisoner at its bar all in a row, and perhaps find one no less guilty than another. The jail, like the whole earth, is now a solitude, and has thereby lost something of its dismal gloom. But here are the narrow cells, like tombs, only drearier and deadlier, because in these the immortal spirit was buried with the body. Inscriptions appear on the walls, scribbled with a pencil or scratched with a rusty nail; brief words of agony, perhaps, or guilt\u2019s desperate defiance to the world, or merely a record of a date by which the writer strove to keep up with the march of life. There is not a living eye that could now decipher these memorials.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>25<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Nor is it while so fresh from their Creator\u2019s hand that the new denizens of earth \u2014 no, nor their descendants for a thousand years \u2014 could discover that this edifice was a hospital for the direst disease which could afflict their predecessors. Its patients bore the outward marks of that leprosy with which all were more or less infected. They were sick \u2014 and so were the purest of their brethren \u2014 with the plague of sin. A deadly sickness, indeed! Feeling its symptoms within the breast, men concealed it with fear and shame, and were only the more cruel to those unfortunates whose pestiferous sores were flagrant to the common eye. Nothing save a rich garment could ever hide the plague spot. In the course of the world\u2019s lifetime, every remedy was tried for its cure and extirpation, except the single one, the flower that grew in Heaven and was sovereign for all the miseries of earth. Man never had attempted to cure sin by Love! Had he but once made the effort it might well have happened that there would have been no more need of the dark lazar house into which Adam and Eve have wandered. Hasten forth with your native innocence, lest the damps of these still conscious walls infect you likewise, and thus another fallen race be propagated!<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref26\" title=\"ftnref26\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn26\">26*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Passing from the interior of the prison into the space within its outward wall, Adam pauses beneath a structure of the simplest contrivance, yet altogether unaccountable to him. It consists merely of two upright posts, supporting a transverse beam, from which dangles a cord.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>27<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cEve, Eve!\u201d cries Adam, shuddering with a nameless horror. \u201cWhat can this thing be?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>28<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cI know not,\u201d answers Eve; \u201cbut, Adam, my heart is sick! There seems to be no more sky \u2014 no more sunshine!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>29<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Well might Adam shudder and poor Eve be sick at heart; for this mysterious object was the type of mankind\u2019s whole system in regard to the great difficulties which God had given to be solved \u2014 a system of fear and vengeance, never successful, yet followed to the last. Here, on the morning when the final summons came, a criminal \u2014 one criminal, where none were guiltless \u2014 had died upon the gallows. Had the world heard the footfall of its own approaching doom, it would have been no inappropriate act thus to close the record of its deeds by one so characteristic.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref30\" title=\"ftnref30\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn30\">30*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>The two pilgrims now hurry from the prison. Had they known how the former inhabitants of earth were shut up in artificial error and cramped and chained by their perversions, they might have compared the whole moral world to a prison house, and have deemed the removal of the race a general jail delivery.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>31<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>They next enter, unannounced, but they might have rung at the door in vain, a private mansion, one of the stateliest in Beacon Street. A wild and plaintive strain of music is quivering through the house, now rising like a solemn organ peal, and now dying into the faintest murmur, as if some spirit that had felt an interest in the departed family were bemoaning itself in the solitude of hall and chamber. Perhaps a virgin, the purest of mortal race, has been left behind to perform a requiem for the whole kindred of humanity. Not so. These are the tones of an \u00c6olian harp, through which Nature pours the harmony that lies concealed in her every breath, whether of summer breeze or tempest. Adam and Eve are lost in rapture, unmingled with surprise. The passing wind, that stirred the harp strings, has been hushed, before they can think of examining the splendid furniture, the gorgeous carpets, and the architecture of the rooms. These things amuse their unpractised eyes, but appeal to nothing within their hearts. Even the pictures upon the walls scarcely excite a deeper interest; for there is something radically artificial and deceptive in painting with which minds in the primal simplicity cannot sympathize. The unbidden guests examine a row of family portraits, but are too dull to recognize them as men and women, beneath the disguise of a preposterous garb, and with features and expression debased, because inherited through ages of moral and physical decay.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref32\" title=\"ftnref32\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn32\">32*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Chance, however, presents them with pictures of human beauty, fresh from the hand of Nature. As they enter a magnificent apartment they are astonished, but not affrighted, to perceive two figures advancing to meet them. Is it not awful to imagine that any life, save their own, should remain in the wide world?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref33\" title=\"ftnref33\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn33\">33*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cHow is this?\u201d exclaims Adam. \u201cMy beautiful Eve, are you in two places at once?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>34<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cAnd you, Adam!\u201d answers Eve, doubtful, yet delighted. \u201cSurely that noble and lovely form is yours. Yet here you are by my side. I am content with one \u2014 methinks there should not be two.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>35<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>This miracle is wrought by a tall looking glass, the mystery of which they soon fathom, because Nature creates a mirror for the human face in every pool of water, and for her own great features in waveless lakes. Pleased and satisfied with gazing at themselves, they now discover the marble statue of a child in a corner of the room so exquisitely idealized that it is almost worthy to be the prophetic likeness of their first born. Sculpture, in its highest excellence, is more genuine than painting, and might seem to be evolved from a natural germ, by the same law as a leaf or flower. The statue of the child impresses the solitary pair as if it were a companion; it likewise hints at secrets both of the past and future.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>36<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cMy husband!\u201d whispers Eve.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>37<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWhat would you say, dearest Eve?\u201d inquires Adam.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>38<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cI wonder if we are alone in the world,\u201d she continues, with a sense of something like fear at the thought of other inhabitants. \u201cThis lovely little form! Did it ever breathe? Or is it only the shadow of something real, like our pictures in the mirror?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>39<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cIt is strange!\u201d replies Adam, pressing his hand to his brow. \u201cThere are mysteries all around us. An idea flits continually before me \u2014 would that I could seize it! Eve, Eve, are we treading in the footsteps of beings that bore a likeness to ourselves? If so, whither are they gone? \u2014 and why is their world so unfit for our dwelling place?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>40<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cOur great Father only knows,\u201d answers Eve. \u201cBut something tells me that we shall not always be alone. And how sweet if other beings were to visit us in the shape of this fair image!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>41<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Then they wander through the house, and every where find tokens of human life, which now, with the idea recently suggested, excite a deeper curiosity in their bosoms. Woman has here left traces of her delicacy and refinement, and of her gentle labors. Eve ransacks a work basket and instinctively thrusts the rosy tip of her finger into a thimble. She takes up a piece of embroidery, glowing with mimic flowers, in one of which a fair damsel of the departed race has left her needle. Pity that the Day of Doom should have anticipated the completion of such a useful task! Eve feels almost conscious of the skill to finish it. A piano-forte has been left open. She flings her hand carelessly over the keys, and strikes out a sudden melody, no less natural than the strains of the \u00c6olian harp, but joyous with the dance of her yet unburdened life. Passing through a dark entry they find a broom behind the door; and Eve, who comprises the whole nature of womanhood, has a dim idea that it is an instrument proper for her hand. In another apartment they behold a canopied bed, and all the appliances of luxurious repose. A heap of forest leaves would be more to the purpose. They enter the nursery, and are perplexed with the sight of little gowns and caps, tiny shoes, and a cradle, amid the drapery of which is still to be seen the impress of a baby\u2019s form. Adam slightly notices these trifles; but Eve becomes involved in a fit of mute reflection from which it is hardly possible to rouse her.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref42\" title=\"ftnref42\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn42\">42*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>By a most unlucky arrangement there was to have been a grand dinner party in this mansion on the very day when the whole human family, including the invited guests, were summoned to the unknown regions of illimitable space. At the moment of fate, the table was actually spread, and the company on the point of sitting down. Adam and Eve come unbidden to the banquet; it has now been some time cold, but otherwise furnishes them with highly favorable specimens of the gastronomy of their predecessors. But it is difficult to imagine the perplexity of the unperverted couple, in endeavoring to find proper food for their first meal, at a table where the cultivated appetites of a fashionable party were to have been gratified. Will Nature teach them the mystery of a plate of turtle soup? Will she embolden them to attack a haunch of venison? Will she initiate them into the merits of a Parisian pasty, imported by the last steamer that ever crossed the Atlantic? Will she not, rather, bid them turn with disgust from fish, fowl, and flesh, which, to their pure nostrils, steam with a loathsome odor of death and corruption? \u2014 Food? The bill of fare contains nothing which they recognize as such.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref43\" title=\"ftnref43\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn43\">43*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Fortunately, however, the dessert is ready upon a neighboring table. Adam, whose appetite and animal instincts are quicker than those of Eve, discovers this fitting banquet.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>44<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cHere, dearest Eve,\u201d he exclaims, \u201chere is food.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>45<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWell,\u201d answers she, with the germ of a housewife stirring within her, \u201cwe have been so busy to-day, that a picked-up dinner must serve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>46<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>So Eve comes to the table and receives a red-cheeked apple from her husband\u2019s hand in requital of her predecessor\u2019s fatal gift to our common grandfather. She eats it without sin, and, let us hope, with no disastrous consequences to her future progeny. They make a plentiful, yet temperate, meal of fruit, which, though not gathered in paradise, is legitimately derived from the seeds that were planted there. Their primal appetite is satisfied.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref47\" title=\"ftnref47\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn47\">47*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWhat shall we drink, Eve?\u201d inquires Adam.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>48<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Eve peeps among some bottles and decanters, which, as they contain fluids, she naturally conceives must be proper to quench thirst. But never before did claret, hock, and madeira, of rich and rare perfume, excite such disgust as now.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref49\" title=\"ftnref49\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn49\">49*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cPah!\u201d she exclaims, after smelling at various wines. \u201cWhat stuff is here? The beings who have gone before us could not have possessed the same nature that we do; for neither their hunger nor thirst were like our own.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cPray hand me yonder bottle,\u201d says Adam. \u201cIf it be drinkable by any manner of mortal, I must moisten my throat with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>51<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>After some remonstrances, she takes up a champagne bottle, but is frightened by the sudden explosion of the cork, and drops it upon the floor. There the untasted liquor effervesces. Had they quaffed it they would have experienced that brief delirium whereby, whether excited by moral or physical causes, man sought to recompense himself for the calm, lifelong joys which he had lost by his revolt from Nature. At length, in a refrigerator, Eve finds a glass pitcher of water, pure, cold, and bright as ever gushed from a fountain among the hills. Both drink; and such refreshment does it bestow, that they question one another if this precious liquid be not identical with the stream of life within them.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref52\" title=\"ftnref52\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn52\">52*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cAnd now,\u201d observes Adam, \u201cwe must again try to discover what sort of a world this is, and why we have been sent hither.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>53<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWhy? to love one another,\u201d cries Eve. \u201cIs not that employment enough?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>54<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cTruly is it,\u201d answers Adam, kissing her; \u201cbut still \u2014 I know not \u2014 something tells us there is labor to be done. Perhaps our allotted task is no other than to climb into the sky, which is so much more beautiful than earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>55<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cThen would we were there now,\u201d murmurs Eve, \u201cthat no task or duty might come between us!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>56<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>They leave the hospitable mansion, and we next see them passing down State Street. The clock on the old State House points to high noon, when the Exchange should be in its glory and present the liveliest emblem of what was the sole business of life, as regarded a multitude of the foregone worldlings. It is over now. The Sabbath of eternity has shed its stillness along the street. Not even a newsboy assails the two solitary passers by with an extra penny paper from the office of the Times or Mail, containing a full account of yesterday\u2019s terrible catastrophe. Of all the dull times that merchants and speculators have known, this is the very worst; for, so far as they were concerned, creation itself has taken the benefit of the bankrupt act. After all, it is a pity. Those mighty capitalists who had just attained the wished-for wealth! Those shrewd men of traffic who had devoted so many years to the most intricate and artificial of sciences, and had barely mastered it when the universal bankruptcy was announced by peal of trumpet! Can they have been so incautious as to provide no currency of the country whither they have gone, nor any bills of exchange, or letters of credit from the needy on earth to the cash keepers of heaven?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref57\" title=\"ftnref57\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn57\">57*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Adam and Eve enter a Bank. Start not, ye whose funds are treasured there! You will never need them now. Call not for the police. The stones of the street and the coin of the vaults are of equal value to this simple pair. Strange sight! They take up the bright gold in handfuls and throw it sportively into the air for the sake of seeing the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. They know not that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, potent to sway men\u2019s hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause in the investigation of the past. They have discovered the mainspring, the life, the very essence of the system that had wrought itself into the vitals of mankind, and choked their original nature in its deadly gripe. Yet how powerless over these young inheritors of earth\u2019s hoarded wealth! And here, too, are huge packages of banknotes, those talismanic slips of paper which once had the efficacy to build up enchanted palaces like exhalations, and work all kinds of perilous wonders, yet were themselves but the ghosts of money, the shadows of a shade. How like is this vault to a magician\u2019s cave when the all-powerful wand is broken, and the visionary splendor vanished, and the floor strown with fragments of shattered spells, and lifeless shapes, once animated by demons!<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>58<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cEvery where, my dear Eve,\u201d observes Adam, \u201cwe find heaps of rubbish of one kind or another. Somebody, I am convinced, has taken pains to collect them, but for what purpose? Perhaps, hereafter, we shall be moved to do the like. Can that be our business in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>59<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cO, no, no, Adam!\u201d answers Eve. \u201cIt would be better to sit down quietly and look upward to the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>60<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>They leave the Bank, and in good time; for had they tarried later they would probably have encountered some gouty old goblin of a capitalist, whose soul could not long be any where save in the vault with his treasure.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref61\" title=\"ftnref61\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn61\">61*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Next they drop into a jeweller\u2019s shop. They are pleased with the glow of gems; and Adam twines a string of beautiful pearls around the head of Eve, and fastens his own mantle with a magnificent diamond brooch. Eve thanks him, and views herself with delight in the nearest looking glass. Shortly afterward, observing a bouquet of roses and other brilliant flowers in a vase of water, she flings away the inestimable pearls, and adorns herself with these lovelier gems of nature. They charm her with sentiment as well as beauty.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>62<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cSurely they are living beings,\u201d she remarks to Adam.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>63<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cI think so,\u201d replies Adam, \u201cand they seem to be as little at home in the world as ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>64<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>We must not attempt to follow every footstep of these investigators whom their Creator has commissioned to pass unconscious judgment upon the works and ways of the vanished race. By this time, being endowed with quick and accurate perceptions, they begin to understand the purpose of the many things around them. They conjecture, for instance, that the edifices of the city were erected, not by the immediate hand that made the world, but by beings somewhat similar to themselves, for shelter and convenience. But how will they explain the magnificence of one habitation as compared with the squalid misery of another? Through what medium can the idea of servitude enter their minds? When will they comprehend the great and miserable fact \u2014 the evidences of which appeal to their senses every where \u2014 that one portion of earth\u2019s lost inhabitants was rolling in luxury while the multitude was toiling for scanty food? A wretched change, indeed, must be wrought in their own hearts ere they can conceive the primal decree of Love to have been so completely abrogated, that a brother should ever want what his brother had. When their intelligence shall have reached so far, Earth\u2019s new progeny will have little reason to exult over her old rejected one.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref65\" title=\"ftnref65\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn65\">65*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Their wanderings have now brought them into the suburbs of the city. They stand on a grassy brow of a hill at the foot of a granite obelisk which points its great finger upwards, as if the human family had agreed, by a visible symbol of age-long endurance, to offer some high sacrifice of thanksgiving or supplication. The solemn height of the monument, its deep simplicity, and the absence of any vulgar and practical use, all strengthen its effect upon Adam and Eve, and leave them to interpret it by a purer sentiment than the builders thought of expressing.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref66\" title=\"ftnref66\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn66\">66*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cEve, it is a visible prayer,\u201d observes Adam.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>67<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cAnd we will pray too,\u201d she replies.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>68<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Let us pardon these poor children of neither father nor mother for so absurdly mistaking the purport of the memorial which man founded and woman finished on far-famed Bunker Hill. The idea of war is not native to their souls. Nor have they sympathies for the brave defenders of liberty, since oppression is one of their unconjectured mysteries. Could they guess that the green sward on which they stand so peacefully was once strewn with human corpses and purple with their blood, it would equally amaze them that one generation of men should perpetrate such carnage, and that a subsequent generation should triumphantly commemorate it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref69\" title=\"ftnref69\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn69\">69*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>With a sense of delight they now stroll across green fields and along the margin of a quiet river. Not to track them too closely, we next find the wanderers entering a Gothic edifice of gray stone, where the by-gone world has left whatever it deemed worthy of record, in the rich library of Harvard University.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref70\" title=\"ftnref70\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn70\">70*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>No student ever yet enjoyed such solitude and silence as now broods within its deep alcoves. Little do the present visitors understand what opportunities are thrown away upon them. Yet Adam looks anxiously at the long rows of volumes, those storied heights of human lore, ascending one above another from floor to ceiling. He takes up a bulky folio. It opens in his hands as if spontaneously to impart the spirit of its author to the yet unworn and untainted intellect of the fresh-created mortal. He stands poring over the regular columns of mystic characters, seemingly in studious mood; for the unintelligible thought upon the page has a mysterious relation to his mind, and makes itself felt as if it were a burden flung upon him. He is even painfully perplexed, and grasps vainly at he knows not what. O, Adam, it is too soon, too soon by at least five thousand years, to put on spectacles and bury yourself in the alcoves of a library!<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref71\" title=\"ftnref71\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn71\">71*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWhat can this be?\u201d he murmurs at last. \u201cEve, methinks nothing is so desirable as to find out the mystery of this big and heavy object with its thousand thin divisions. See! it stares me in the face as if it were about to speak!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>72<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Eve, by a feminine instinct, is dipping into a volume of fashionable poetry, the production of certainly the most fortunate of earthly bards, since his lay continues in vogue when all the great masters of the lyre have passed into oblivion. But let not his ghost be too exultant! The world\u2019s one lady tosses the book upon the floor and laughs merrily at her husband\u2019s abstracted mien.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref73\" title=\"ftnref73\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn73\">73*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cMy dear Adam,\u201d cries she, \u201cyou look pensive and dismal. Do fling down that stupid thing; for even if it should speak it would not be worth attending to. Let us talk with one another, and with the sky, and the green earth, and its trees and flowers. They will teach us better knowledge than we can find here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>74<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cWell, Eve, perhaps you are right,\u201d replies Adam, with a sort of sigh. \u201cStill I cannot help thinking that the interpretation of the riddles amid which we have been wandering all day long might here be discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>75<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cIt may be better not to seek the interpretation,\u201d persists Eve. \u201cFor my part, the air of this place does not suit me. If you love me, come away!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>76<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>She prevails, and rescues him from the mysterious perils of the library. Happy influence of woman! Had he lingered there long enough to obtain a clue to its treasures, \u2014 as was not impossible, his intellect being of human structure, indeed, but with an untransmitted vigor and acuteness, \u2014 had he then and there become a student, the annalist of our poor world would soon have recorded the downfall of a second Adam. The fatal apple of another Tree of Knowledge would have been eaten. All the perversions, and sophistries, and false wisdom so aptly mimicking the true \u2014 all the narrow truth, so partial that it becomes more deceptive than falsehood \u2014 all the wrong principles and worse practice, the pernicious examples and mistaken rules of life \u2014 all the specious theories which turn earth into cloudland and men into shadows \u2014 all the sad experience which it took mankind so many ages to accumulate, and from which they never drew a moral for their future guidance, \u2014 the whole heap of this disastrous lore would have tumbled at once upon Adam\u2019s head. There would have been nothing left for him but to take up the already abortive experiment of life where we had dropped it, and toil onward with it a little further.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>77<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>But, blessed in his ignorance, he may still enjoy a new world in our wornout one. Should he fall short of good, even as far as we did, he has at least the freedom \u2014 no worthless one \u2014 to make errors for himself. And his literature, when the progress of centuries shall create it, will be no interminably repeated echo of our own poetry and reproduction of the images that were moulded by our great fathers of song and fiction, but a melody never yet heard on earth, and intellectual forms unbreathed upon by our conceptions. Therefore let the dust of ages gather upon the volumes of the library, and in due season the roof of the edifice crumble down upon the whole. When the second Adam\u2019s descendants shall have collected as much rubbish of their own, it will be time enough to dig into our ruins and compare the literary advancement of two independent races.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>78<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>But we are looking forward too far. It seems to be the vice of those who have a long past behind them. We will return to the new Adam and Eve, who, having no reminiscences save dim and fleeting visions of a pre\u00ebxistence, are content to live and be happy in the present.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>79<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>The day is near its close when these pilgrims, who derive their being from no dead progenitors, reach the cemetery of Mount Auburn. With light hearts \u2014 for earth and sky now gladden each other with beauty \u2014 they tread along the winding paths, among marble pillars, mimic temples, urns, obelisks, and sarcophagi, sometimes pausing to contemplate these fantasies of human growth, and sometimes to admire the flowers wherewith Nature converts decay to loveliness. Can death, in the midst of his old triumphs, make them sensible that they have taken up the heavy burden of mortality which a whole species had thrown down? Dust kindred to their own has never lain in the grave. Will they then recognize, and so soon, that Time and the elements have an indefeasible claim upon their bodies? Not improbably they may. There must have been shadows enough, even amid the primal sunshine of their existence, to suggest the thought of the soul\u2019s incongruity with its circumstances. They have already learned that something is to be thrown aside. The idea of Death is in them, or not far off. But, were they to choose a symbol for him, it would be the butterfly soaring upward, or the bright angel beckoning them aloft, or the child asleep, with soft dreams visible through her transparent purity.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p><a name=\"ftnref80\" title=\"ftnref80\"><\/a><strong><a href=\"#ftn80\">80*<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>Such a Child, in whitest marble, they have found among the monuments of Mount Auburn.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"10\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td width=\"5%\" valign=\"top\" align=\"left\">\n<p>81<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cSweetest Eve,\u201d observes Adam, while hand in hand they contemplate this beautiful object, \u201cyonder sun has left us, and the whole world is fading from our sight. Let us sleep as this lovely little figure is sleeping. Our Father only knows whether what outward things we have possessed to-day are to be snatched from us forever. But should our earthly life be leaving us with the departing light, we need not doubt that another morn will find us somewhere beneath the smile of God. I feel that he has imparted the boon of existence never to be resumed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\">\n<p>82<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\u201cAnd no matter where we exist,\u201d replies Eve, \u201cfor we shall always be together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td>\n<p>83<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n<div class=\"lazyblock-section-break-ILNx9 wp-block-lazyblock-section-break\"><div class=\"block-tna-section-break mt-12 pt-2 mb-6\">\r\n  <div class=\"mb-12 pb-2 flex justify-center\">\r\n    <svg class=\"fill-current\" height=\"1\" width=\"91\" viewBox=\"0 0 91 1\">\r\n      <path d=\"M91 .5L62.706 1H28.447L0 .5 28.447 0h34.259L91 .5z\"\/>\r\n    <\/svg>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\t<h5 class=\"leading-none font-callunasans font-bold text-center text-almost-black text-lg\">\r\n\t\t\t<\/h5>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center\">Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn1\" title=\"ftn1\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref1\">[paragraph 1]<\/a> \u201cThe New Adam and Eve\u201d<\/strong> was originally published in <em>United States Magazine and Democratic Review <\/em>in February 1843. It was later collected in <em>Mosses from an Old Manse <\/em>(1846), upon the second edition of which (1854) this text is based.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>Art<\/strong> &#8211; The word <em>art<\/em> is used in this story not to mean painting, sculpture, and music but rather as a term for skill, technique, or artifice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>Father Miller<\/strong> &#8211; William Miller (1782-1849) was a preacher and the founder of the Adventist movement. Starting in the 1820s, he predicted the return of Christ \u2014 eventually estimating that the Second Coming would fall between March 1843 and March 1844. In preparation for His return, Miller held revivals around the United States \u2014 but when March 1844 came and went, he admitted that his calculations were a little off and revised his prediction of the Advent to October 22, 1844. Many Adventists sold all their belongings and neglected to harvest their crops that year. Signs and wonders were enthusiastically reported. But October 23 dawned to no new millennium. Today\u2019s Seventh-day Adventist Church is descended from the movement Miller began.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn19\" title=\"ftn19\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref19\">[paragraph 19]<\/a> obnoxious<\/strong> &#8211; susceptible or exposed to; This was the common meaning of the word before the nineteenth century, although it is rarely used today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn24\" title=\"ftn24\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref24\">[paragraph 24]<\/a> Hall of Legislature<\/strong> &#8211; The capitol building or \u201cnew\u201d State House, built in 1798. It is located on Beacon Street, overlooking the Boston Common.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn26\" title=\"ftn26\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref26\">[paragraph 26]<\/a> pestiferous<\/strong> &#8211; literally, \u201cbringing plague\u201d (and here to serve Hawthorne\u2019s metaphor)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>flagrant<\/strong> &#8211; blazingly obvious<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>lazar house<\/strong> &#8211; an institution for caring for and quarantining the diseased, especially lepers<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn30\" title=\"ftn30\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref30\">[paragraph 30]<\/a> type<\/strong> &#8211; representative, symbol<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn32\" title=\"ftn32\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref32\">[paragraph 32]<\/a> Beacon Street<\/strong> &#8211; a major avenue in Boston, adjacent to the Boston Common<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>\u00c6olian harp<\/strong> &#8211; A wooden instrument that produces sound when the strings that stretch across its two bridges are blown by the wind. The harp is named after \u00c6olus, the ancient Greek god of the wind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn33\" title=\"ftn33\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref33\">[paragraph 33]<\/a> awful<\/strong> &#8211; full of awe, wonderful<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn42\" title=\"ftn42\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref42\">[paragraph 42]<\/a> embroidery<\/strong> &#8211; decorative needlework <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>anticipated<\/strong> &#8211; happened before<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>piano-forte<\/strong> &#8211; a piano<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn43\" title=\"ftn43\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref43\">[paragraph 43]<\/a> gastronomy<\/strong> &#8211; the art of excellent eating <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>pasty<\/strong> &#8211; a meat pie<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn47\" title=\"ftn47\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref47\">[paragraph 47]<\/a> requital<\/strong> &#8211; in return, repayment <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>her predecessor\u2019s fatal gift to our common grandfather<\/strong> &#8211; the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that the original Eve gave the original Adam in the Garden of Eden<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn49\" title=\"ftn49\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref49\">[paragraph 49]<\/a> claret, hock, madeira<\/strong> &#8211; expensive, exotic wines from France, Germany, and Portugal<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn52\" title=\"ftn52\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref52\">[paragraph 52]<\/a> refrigerator<\/strong> &#8211; an icebox; a cupboard lined with tin and sawdust or other insulation<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn57\" title=\"ftn57\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref57\">[paragraph 57]<\/a> State Street, the old State House, the Exchange<\/strong> &#8211; State Street was the main thoroughfare through Boston\u2019s historic financial district. The State House, built in 1713, is the oldest public building still standing in Boston. At one time, it housed a merchants\u2019 exchange, the state assembly, and the state Supreme Judicial Court. The Exchange is the Boston Stock Exchange, founded in 1834. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn61\" title=\"ftn61\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref61\">[paragraph 61]<\/a> gouty<\/strong> &#8211; afflicted with the gout, a chronic inflammation of the joints<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn65\" title=\"ftn65\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref65\">[paragraph 65]<\/a> abrogated<\/strong> &#8211; abolished, annulled <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>progeny<\/strong> &#8211; offspring<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn66\" title=\"ftn66\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref66\">[paragraph 66]<\/a> obelisk<\/strong> &#8211; A freestanding four-sided column rising to a point. (The Washington Monument is an example of an obelisk.) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn69\" title=\"ftn69\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref69\">[paragraph 69]<\/a> the memorial of which man founded and woman finished on far-famed Bunker Hill<\/strong> &#8211; A 221-foot granite obelisk was erected on Breed\u2019s Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts between 1827 and 1843 (that is, it was brand new when the story was published) to commemorate the battle of Bunker Hill, the first major conflict of the Revolutionary War. A group of prominent Bostonians organized the project in the 1820s but ran out of money, leaving a half-constructed monument that neighbors complained was an eyesore and threatened to dismantle. Funds for its completion were raised by the \u201ceditress\u201d and subscribers of <em>Godey\u2019s Lady\u2019s Book<\/em>, a magazine to which Hawthorne occasionally contributed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>sward<\/strong> &#8211; a lawn<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn70\" title=\"ftn70\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref70\">[paragraph 70]<\/a> quiet river<\/strong> &#8211; the Charles River, which empties into Boston Harbor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn71\" title=\"ftn71\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref71\">[paragraph 71]<\/a> folio<\/strong> &#8211; folded sheets of paper bound into a large volume<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn73\" title=\"ftn73\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref73\">[paragraph 73]<\/a> lay<\/strong> &#8211; a ballad, a short narrative or lyric poem meant to be sung <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>mien<\/strong> &#8211; look, demeanor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong><a name=\"ftn80\" title=\"ftn80\"><\/a><a href=\"#ftnref80\">[paragraph 80]<\/a> Mount Auburn<\/strong> &#8211; The first American garden cemetery, founded in 1831 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rather than an ordinary graveyard, it is a park with classically inspired monuments interspersed across an arboretum. The word <em>cemetery<\/em>, whose Greek roots translate to \u201csleeping place,\u201d came into common use with the construction of this kind of burial ground. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"note\"><strong>sarcophagi<\/strong> &#8211; elaborate stone coffins, often embellished with carvings, inscriptions, or sculptures<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We who are born into the world\u2019s artificial system can never adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of man. Art has become a second and stronger nature; she is a stepmother, whose crafty tenderness has taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations of our true parent. It is only through the medium of the imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which we call truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible what prisoners we are. For&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14347,"template":"","article_type":[15],"noteworthy_people":[],"topics":[2265],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/10325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/10325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21702,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/10325\/revisions\/21702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=10325"},{"taxonomy":"noteworthy_people","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noteworthy_people?post=10325"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenewatlantis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=10325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}