Chapter VIII

Do you say this, or I?—Oh, you! Then, what, my friend?—(thus I pursue Our parley)—you indeed opine That the Eternal and Divine Did, eighteen centuries ago, In very truth.... Enough! you know The all-stupendous tale,—that Birth, That Life, that Death! And all, the earth Shuddered at,—all, the heavens grew black Rather than see; all, nature’s rack And throe at dissolution’s brink Attested,—all took place, you think, Only to give our joys a zest, And prove our sorrows for the best? We differ, then! Were I, still pale And heartstruck at the dreadful tale, Waiting to hear God’s voice declare What horror followed for my share, As implicated in the deed, Apart from other sins,—concede That if he blacked out in a blot My brief life’s pleasantness, ’twere not So very disproportionate! Or there might be another fate— I certainly could understand (If fancies were the thing in hand) How God might save, at that day’s price, The impure in their impurities, Give formal licence and complete To choose the fair and pick the sweet. But there be certain words, broad, plain, Uttered again and yet again, Hard to mistake or overgloss— Announcing this world’s gain for loss, And bidding us reject the same: The whole world lieth (they proclaim) In wickedness,—come out of it! Turn a deaf ear, if you think fit, But I who thrill through every nerve At thought of what deaf ears deserve,— How do you counsel in the case?

The counsel was, to choose by all means the safe side, by giving up everything as literally as did the martyrs in the early days of persecution; at which a shudder of doubt comes over him, and he answers (note the very remarkable illustration of the moles and the grasshoppers):—