--It
is the merest fancy that ever was in the world. I shall never be
married. She will; and if she is as pleasant as she has been so
far, I will give her a silver tea-set, and go and take tea with her
and her husband, sometimes. No coffee, I hope, though,--it
depresses me sadly. I feel very miserably;--they must have been
grinding it at home.--Another morning walk will be good for me, and
I don't doubt the schoolmistress will be glad of a little fresh air
before school.
- The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent have been
coming over me from time to time of late. Did you ever see that
electrical experiment which consists in passing a flash through
letters of gold-leaf in a darkened room, whereupon some name or
legend springs out of the darkness in characters of fire?
There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if
the flash might pass through them,--but the fire must come down
from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy nimbus of youthful passion
has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus of
dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumulus of sluggish
satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom
living ones no longer worship,--the immortal maid, who, name her
what you will,--Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty,--sits by the
pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead
until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his
dreams.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282