Heraclitus believed that all the universe was fire, a conflagration never doused; and the Collegians in some wise agreed — speaking of the subtle fluids, the atomies and energies, that made up matter; and standing there upon the street, how could one believe otherwise?
I could not determine what was darkness and what was light; but all was energy, as if each stable thing had given up its wonted solidity; for matter itself rippled; light melted and ran; and we were not solid, but our bones themselves were energies, involved ever in exchange; our skin spat forth its superficies; a face, burst with musket-ball, bled; a body on a cart loosed its spirit; and we were bombarded always by the æther.
“From a fire which never dies nor sinks, how should one escape?” asks Heraclitus — and so I felt then — for all around me was the buzzing of that energy — as Mr. Sharpe’s foul image of a universal use — all things engaged in the devouring of each other — and I thought, never shall the woodland seem like woodland — never shall pasture hum with bucolic quiet again — but only the cicada-call of frying — as all objects seek their stoking, their fuel — striving against one another — man to wrest nutrient from animal, animal from herb, grass from the sun — the center still of our system — that vast body, profligate of energy — which we struggle to imbibe, and kill to enjoy. There is no respite, no surcease; for we are always burning, always absorbing — sparks flaring briefly in this vast system of need and theft, this insubstantial latticework of flame, this tireless inferno, this monstrous riot, where all, at last, are consumed.
“There is exchange of all things for fire and of fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and of gold for wares.”
We stumbled forward with our cart, our prisoner, our dying friend in arms.