Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the most strange and
consoling: that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the
dust, this inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny
himself his rare delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for
an ideal, however misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new
doctrine,[10] received with screams a little while ago by canting
moralists, and still not properly worked into the body of our
thoughts, lights us a step farther into the heart of this rough but
noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man denies in vain his
kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer like a thing
apart. Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another genius:
and in him too, we see dumbly testified the same cultus[11] of an
unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. Does it stop with
the dog? We look at our feet where the ground is blackened with the
swarming ant: a creature so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of
brutes, that we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; and
here also, in his ordered polities and rigorous justice, we see
confessed the law of duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it
stop, then, with the ant? Rather this desire of well-doing and this
doom of frailty run through all the grades of life: rather is this
earth, from the frosty top of Everest[12] to the next margin of the
internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues and one temple of
pious tears and perseverance. The whole creation groaneth[13] and
travaileth together. It is the common and the god-like law of life.
The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy coats of field and
forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed creeper in the
dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us the love
of an ideal: strive like us--like us are tempted to grow weary of the
struggle--to do well; like us receive at times unmerited refreshment,
visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned like us to
be crucified between that double law[14] of the members and the will.
Are they like us, I wonder in the timid hope of some reward, some
sugar with the drug? do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues,
at the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be
just, and the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked?
It may be, and yet God knows what they should look for. Even while
they look, even while they repent, the foot of man treads them by
thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the
bullet speeds, the knives are heating in the den of the
vivisectionist;[15] or the dew falls, and the generation of a day is
blotted out. For these are creatures, compared with whom our weakness
is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity.

And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror[16] and under
the imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected,
the reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--God forbid it should be man
that wearies in well-doing,[17] that despairs of unrewarded effort, or
utters the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the
whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable
constancy: Surely not all in vain.[18]


NOTES

During the year 1888, part of which was spent by Stevenson at Saranac
Lake in the Adirondacks he published one article every month in
_Scribner's Magazine_. _Pulvis et Umbra_ appeared in the April number,
and was later included in the volume _Across the Plains_ (1892). He
wrote this particular essay with intense feeling. Writing to Sidney
Colvin in December 1887, he said, "I get along with my papers for
_Scribner_ not fast, nor so far specially well; only this last, the
fourth one.... I do believe is pulled off after a fashion. It is a
mere sermon: ... but it is true, and I find it touching and
beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing in
it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it;
I might have called it a _Darwinian Sermon_, if I had wanted. Its
sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe."
(_Letters_, II, 100.) Writing to Miss Adelaide Boodle in April 1888,
he said, "I wrote a paper the other day--_Pulvis et Umbra_;--I wrote
it with great feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and
healthful, it is in such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad
to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some
excellent jests between whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to
some people this vision of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all
ground of faith in God or pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much
of; for I do not know it. And I could wish in my heart that I had not
published this paper, if it troubles folk too much: all have not the
same digestion nor the same sight of things.... Well, I cannot take
back what I have said; but yet I may add this. If my view be
everything but the nonsense that it may be--to me it seems
self-evident and blinding truth--surely of all things it makes this
world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral side--but the great
battle and the breathing times with their refreshments. I see no more
and no less. And if you look again, it is not ugly, and it is filled
with promise." (_Letters_, II, 123.) The words _Pulvis et Umbra_ mean
literally "dust and shadow": the phrase, however, is quoted from
Horace "pulvis et umbra sumus"--_we are dust and ashes_. It forms the
text of one of Stevenson's familiar discourses on Death, like _Aes
Triplex_.

[Note 1: _Find them change with every climate_, etc. For some striking
illustrations of this, see Sudermann's drama, _Die Ehre_ (Honour).]

[Note 2: NH3 and H2O. The first is the chemical formula for ammonia:
the second, for water.]

[Note 3: _That way madness lies. King Lear_, III, 4, 21.]

[Note 4: _A pediculous malady ... locomotory_. Stevenson was fond of
strange words. "Pediculous" means covered with lice, lousy.]

[Note 5: _The heart of his mystery. Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 2, "you
would pluck out the heart of my mystery." Mystery here means "secret,"
as in I. _Cor_. XIII, "Behold, I tell you a mystery."]

[Note 6: _The thought of duty_. Kant said, "Two things fill the mind
with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the
more steadily we reflect on them: _the starry heavens above and the
moral law within_." (Conclusion to the _Practical Reason_--_Kritik der
praktischen Vernunft_, 1788.)]

[Note 7: _Assiniboia ... Calumet_. Assinibioia is a district of
Canada, just west of Manitoba. _Calumet_ is the pipe of peace, used by
North American Indians when solemnizing treaties etc. Its stem is over
two feet long, heavily decorated with feathers etc.]

[Note 8: _Drowns her child in the sacred river_. The sacred river of
India is the Ganges; before British control, children were often
sacrificed there by drowning to appease the angry divinity.]

[Note 9: _The touch of pity_. "No beast so fierce but knows some touch
of pity." _Richard III_, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 71. _This ennobled lemur_.
A lemur is a nocturnal animal, something like a monkey.]

[Note 10: _A new doctrine_. Evolution. Darwin's _Origin of Species_
was published in 1859. Many ardent Christians believe in its general
principles to-day; but at first it was bitterly attacked by orthodox
and conservative critics. A Princeton professor cried, "Darwinism is
Atheism!"]

[Note 11: _Cultus_. Stevenson liked this word. _The swarming ant_.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the
summer."--_Proverbs_, XXX. 25. For a wonderful description of an ant
battle, see Thoreau's _Walden_.]

[Note 12: _Everest_. Mount Everest in the Himalayas, is the highest
mountain in the world, with an altitude of about 29,000 feet.]

[Note 13: _The whole creation groaneth. Romans_, VIII, 22.]

[Note 14: _That double law of the members_. See Note 10 of Chapter VI
above.]

[Note 15: _Den of the vivisectionist_. See Note 2 of Chapter VI
above.]

[Note 16: _In our isle of terror_. Cf. Herriet, _The White Island_.

  "In this world, the isle of dreams,
  While we sit by sorrow's streams,
  Tears and terrors are our themes."]

[Note 17: _Man that wearies in well-doing. Galatians_, VI, 9.]

[Note 18: _Surely not all in vain_. At heart, Stevenson belongs not to
the pessimists nor the skeptics, but to the optimists and the
believers. A man may have no formal creed, and yet be a believer.