IN that curious little masterpiece A Beleagured City, Mrs. Oliphant shows us the dead of a provincial1 town suddenly waxing indignant over the conduct and the morals of those inhabiting the town which they founded. They rise up in rebellion, invest the houses, the streets, the market-places and, by the pressure of their innumerable multitude, all-powerful though invisible, repulse2 the living, thrust them out of doors and, setting a strict watch, permit them to return to their roof-trees only after a treaty of peace and penitence3 has purified their hearts, atoned4 for their offences and ensured a more worthy5 future.
Undoubtedly6 a great truth underlies7 this fiction, which appears to us far-fetched because we perceive only material and ephemeral realities. The dead life and move in our midst far more really and effectually than the most venturesome imagination could depict8. It is very doubtful whether they remain in their graves. It even seems increasingly certain that they never allowed themselves to be confined there. Under the tombstones where we believe them to lie imprisoned9 there are only a few ashes, which are no longer theirs, which they have abandoned without regret and which in all probability they no longer deign10 to remember. All that was themselves continues to have its being in our midst. How and under what aspect? After all these thousands, perhaps millions of years, we do not yet know; and no religion has been able to tell us with satisfying certainty, though all have striven to do so; but we may, by means of certain tokens, hope to learn.
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Without further considering a mighty11 but obscure truth, which it is for the moment impossible to state precisely12 or to render palpable, let us concern ourselves with one which cannot be disputed. As I have said elsewhere, whatever our religious faith may be, there is at any rate one place where our dead cannot perish, where they continue to exist as really as when they were in the flesh and often more actively13; and this living abiding-place, this consecrated14 spot, which for those whom we have lost becomes Heaven or Hell according as we draw nearer to or travel farther from their thoughts and their desires, is within ourselves.
And their thoughts and their desires are always higher than our own. It is, therefore, by uplifting ourselves that we approach them. It is we who must take the first steps, for they can no longer descend15, whereas it is always possible for us to rise; for the dead, whatever they may have been in life, become better than the best of us. The least worthy of them, in shedding the body, have shed its vices16, its littlenesses, its weaknesses, which soon pass from our memory as well; and the spirit alone remains17, which is pure in every man and able to desire only what is good. There are no wicked dead, because there are no wicked souls. This is why, as we purify ourselves, we restore life to those who were no more and transform our memory, which they inhabit, into Heaven.
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And what was always true of all the dead is far more true to-day, when only the best are chosen for the tomb. In the region which we believe to be under the earth, which we call the Kingdom of the Shades and which in reality is the ethereal region and the Kingdom of Light, there are at this moment disturbances18 no less profound than those which we have experienced on the surface of the earth. The young dead have invaded it from every side; and since the beginning of this world they have never been so numerous, so full of energy and zeal19. Whereas in the customary sequence of the years the dwelling20-place of those who leave us receives only weary and exhausted21 lives, there is not one in this incomparable host who, to borrow Pericles’ expression, “has not departed from life at the height of glory.” Not one of them but has gone up, not down, to his death clad in the greatest sacrifice that man can make for an idea that cannot die. All that we have hitherto believed, all that we have striven to attain22 beyond ourselves, all that has lifted us to the level at which we stand, all that has overcome the evil days and the evil instincts of human nature: all this could have been no more than lies and illusions if such men as these, such a mass of merit and of glory, were really annihilated23, had for ever disappeared, were for ever useless and voiceless, for ever without influence in a world to which they have given life.
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It is hardly possible that this could be so as regards the external survival of the dead; but it is absolutely certain that it is not so as regards their survival in ourselves. Here nothing is lost and no one perishes. Our memories are to-day peopled by a multitude of heroes struck down in the flower of their youth and very different from the pale and languid cohort of the past, composed almost wholly of the sick and the old, who had already ceased to exist before leaving the earth. We must tell ourselves that now, in every one of our homes, both in our cities and in the country-side, both in the palace and in the meanest hovel, there lives and reigns24 a young dead man in the glory of his strength. He fills the poorest, darkest dwelling with a splendour of which it had never ventured to dream. His constant presence, imperious and inevitable25, diffuses26 and maintains a religion and ideas which it had never known before, hallows everything around it, makes the eyes look higher, prevents the spirit from descending27, purifies the air that is breathed and the speech that is held and the thoughts that are mustered28 there and, little by little, ennobles and uplifts the whole people on a scale of unexampled vastness.
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Such dead as these have a power as profound, as fruitful as life and less precarious29. It is terrible that this experience should have been made, for it is the most pitiless and the first in such enormous masses that mankind has undergone; but, now that the ordeal30 is over, we shall soon gather the most unexpected fruits. It will not be long before we see the differences widen and the destinies diverge31 between the nations which have acquired all these dead and all this glory and those which were deprived of them; and we shall perceive with amazement32 that the nations which have lost the most are those which have kept their riches and their men. There are losses which are inestimable gains; and there are gains whereby the future is lost. There are dead whom the living cannot replace and the mere33 thought of whom accomplishes things which our bodies cannot perform. There are dead whose energy surpasses death and recovers life; and we are almost every one of us at this moment the mandataries of a being greater, nobler, graver, wiser and more truly living than ourselves. With all those who accompany him, he will be our judge, if it be true that the dead weigh the soul of the living and that our happiness depends on their verdict. He will be our guide and our protector, for it is the first time, since history has revealed its misfortunes to us, that man has felt so great a host of such mighty dead soaring above his head and speaking within his heart.
We shall live henceforward under their laws, which will be more just but not more severe nor more cheerless than ours; for it is a mistake to suppose that the dead love nothing but gloom: they love only that justice and that truth which are the eternal forms of happiness.
From the depths of this justice and this truth in which they are all immersed, they will help us to destroy the great falsehoods of existence; for war and death, if they sow innumerable miseries34 and misfortunes, have at least the merit of destroying as many lives as they occasion evils. And all the sacrifices which they have made for us will have been in vain—and this is not possible—if they do not first of all bring about the fall of the lies on which we live and which it is not necessary to name, for each of us knows his own and is ashamed of them and will be eager to make an end of them.
They will teach us, before all else, from the depths of our hearts which are their living tombs, to love those who outlive them, since it is in them alone that they wholly exist.
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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repulse
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| n.击退，拒绝；vt.逐退，击退，拒绝 | |
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penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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diffuses
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的第三人称单数 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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mustered
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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