Sir Thomas More | Page 6

love the children whom they have left on earth, we, in like
manner, though with a feeling different in kind and inferior in degree,
look with apprehension upon the perils of our country.
"sub pectore forti Vivit adhuc patriae pietas; stimulatque sepultum
Libertatis amor: pondus mortale necari Si potuit, veteres animo post
funera vires Mansere, et prisci vivit non immemor aevi."
They are the words of old Mantuan.
Montesinos.--I am to understand, then, that you cannot see into the

ways of futurity?
Sir Thomas More.--Enlarged as our faculties are, you must not suppose
that we partake of prescience. For human actions are free, and we exist
in time. The future is to us therefore as uncertain as to you; except only
that having a clearer and more comprehensive knowledge of the past,
we are enabled to reason better from causes to consequences, and by
what has been to judge of what is likely to be. We have this advantage
also, that we are divested of all those passions which cloud the
intellects and warp the understandings of men. You are thinking, I
perceive, how much you have to learn, and what you should first
inquire of me. But expect no revelations! Enough was revealed when
man was assured of judgment after death, and the means of salvation
were afforded him. I neither come to discover secret things nor hidden
treasures; but to discourse with you concerning these portentous and
monster-breeding times; for it is your lot, as it was mine, to live during
one of the grand climacterics of the world. And I come to you, rather
than to any other person, because you have been led to meditate upon
the corresponding changes whereby your age and mine are
distinguished; and because, notwithstanding many discrepancies and
some dispathies between us (speaking of myself as I was, and as you
know me), there are certain points of sympathy and resemblance which
bring us into contact, and enable us at once to understand each other.
Montesinos.--Et in Utopia ego.
Sir Thomas More.--You apprehend me. We have both speculated in the
joys and freedom of our youth upon the possible improvement of
society; and both in like manner have lived to dread with reason the
effects of that restless spirit which, like the Titaness Mutability
described by your immortal master, insults heaven and disturbs the
earth. By comparing the great operating causes in the age of the
Reformation, and in this age of revolutions, going back to the former
age, looking at things as I then beheld them, perceiving wherein I
judged rightly, and wherein I erred, and tracing the progress of those
causes which are now developing their whole tremendous power, you
will derive instruction, which you are a fit person to receive and

communicate; for without being solicitous concerning present effect,
you are contented to cast your bread upon the waters. You are now
acquainted with me and my intention. To-morrow you will see me
again; and I shall continue to visit you occasionally as opportunity may
serve. Meantime say nothing of what has passed--not even to your wife.
She might not like the thoughts of a ghostly visitor: and the reputation
of conversing with the dead might be almost as inconvenient as that of
dealing with the devil. For the present, then, farewell! I will never
startle you with too sudden an apparition; but you may learn to behold
my disappearance without alarm.
I was not able to behold it without emotion, although he had thus
prepared me; for the sentence was no sooner completed than he was
gone. Instead of rising from the chair he vanished from it. I know not to
what the instantaneous disappearance can be likened. Not to the
dissolution of a rainbow, because the colours of the rainbow fade
gradually till they are lost; not to the flash of cannon, or to lightning,
for these things are gone as so on as they are come, and it is known that
the instant of their appearance must be that of their departure; not to a
bubble upon the water, for you see it burst; not to the sudden extinction
of a light, for that is either succeeded by darkness or leaves a different
hue upon the surrounding objects. In the same indivisible point of time
when I beheld the distinct, individual, and, to all sense of sight,
substantial form--the living, moving, reasonable image--in that
self-same instant it was gone, as if exemplifying the difference between
to be and not to be. It was no dream, of this I was well assured; realities
are never mistaken for dreams, though dreams may be mistaken for
realities. Moreover I had long been accustomed in sleep to question my
perceptions with a wakeful faculty of reason, and to detect their fallacy.
But,