Strictly Literature: Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, and Cup of Exquisite Poetry

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You're about to hear Big Ben strike eleven. Is he really with you? There we go, number one. I'm walking along the Thames after the theatre. Disappointing, disappointing play. Um lovely to see my friend and not not a bad play, just disappointing. I was expecting much more. Walking past the county hall and heading my hotel. Big Ben looks beautiful. And I was listening to Chips Channel's audiobook and he was writing in 1925, so a hundred and one years ago. And without further ado, Charlotte Bronte's Villette Chapter ten Dr. John Madame Beck was a most consistent character, forbearing with all the world and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well being, but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the loving word. I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little ones afar off as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their bon, in her mean spoke care and prudence. I knew she often pondered anxiously what she called Le Avenir, but if the youngest, a puny and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its nurse and, toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child's sudden onset. Pengard Monfon, she would say unmoved, patiently permit it to stand near her a few moments, and then without a smile or kiss or endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette. Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another way. This was a vicious child Kel pest chet desire, quel poison cuset enfon were the expressions dedicated to her alike in kitchen and in the schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted an exquisite skill in the art of provocation, sometimes driving her bon and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil their best shawls. She would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet of the Salamanchet, where she would smash articles of porcelain or glass, or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the kitchen maid, all this when Madame saw, and of course when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was desire bozoin du seven tut particular. Accordingly she kept this promising olive branch a good deal at her side. Never once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the evil of such habits, and show the results results which must thence ensue. Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed, of course. Desire was kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and pillaged her mamma instead. Whatever belonging to the Madame's work table or toilet she could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she still pretended not to see. She had not rectitude of soul to confront the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Desire had taken it away in play and beg her to restore it. Desire was not to be so cheated, she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring or scissors. Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly assume an air of belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the child till she tracked her to her hiding places. Some hole in the garden wall, some chink or cranny in garret or outhouse. This done, Madame would send Deret out for a walk with her bon and profit by her absence to rob the robber. Desire proved herself the true daughter of her astute parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss. The second child, Fiffine, was said to be like its dead father. Certainly though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was an honest, gleeful little soul, a passionate, warm tempered, bustling creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps, and when Madame, hearing the noise, she always heard every noise, issued from the Sala Moget and picked it up, she said quietly Seton Ense. At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true. One little plump arm hung powerless. Lit Mise, meaning me, take her, said Madame Econ et Suite Cherchet Unfiercre. In a fiecre she promptly, but with admirable coolness and self possession, departed to fetch a surgeon. It appeared she did not find the family surgeon at home, but that mattered not. She sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her mind and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the child's sleeve from its arm, undressed, and put it to bed. We none of us, I suppose, by we I mean the Bon, the cook, the portress, and myself, all of which personages were now gathered in the small and stove heated chamber, looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor when he came into the room. I at least was taken up with endeavouring to soothe Fiffine, whose cries, for she had good lungs, were appalling to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the stranger approached her bed, when he took her up. Let alone she cried passionately, in her broken English, for she spoke English as did the other children. I will not you I will doctor Pil And Dr. Pilul is my very good friend, was the answer, in perfect English, but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in his stead. So now, when we get a little karma, we must commence business, and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in right order. Hereupon he called for a glass of eau sucre, fed her with some teaspoonful of the sweet liquid fifteen was a franc gourmand, anybody could win her heart through her palate, promised her more when the operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance being needed he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong armed woman, but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I did not like to touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there was no alternative, my hand was already extended to do what was requisite. I was anticipated. Madame Beck had put out her own hand. Hers was steady while mine trembled. Savoutram, said the doctor, turning from me to her. He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism, forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned. Merci, madame. Trebien faupian, said the operator, when he had finished. Voila unfois bien putin e quivomis elan de sensibilite di place. He was pleased with her firmness and she with his compliment. It is likely too that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien and manner wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well at him and when a lamp was brought in, for it was evening and now waxing dusk, you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less that woman so I had to turn the page, less that woman, it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor, he was young, had no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly tall in that little chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch made women, his profile was clear, fine and expressive. Perhaps his eye glanced from face to face, rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often. But it had a most pleasant character, and so had his mouth, his chin was full, cleft, Grecian and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it merited. There was something in it that pleased, but something too that brought surging up to the mind all one's foibles and weak points, all that could lay one open to a laugh. Yet Fiffine liked this doubtful smile and thought the owner genial. Much as he had hurt her, she held out her hand to bid him a friendly good night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he and Madame went downstairs together, she talking in her highest tide of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good natured amenity, dashed with that unconscious, roguish archness I find it quite difficult to describe. I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better. He had too an English complexion, eyes and form. I noticed more, as he passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction, one moment, not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing that I almost necessarily looked up at him, a recollection which had been struggling to form in my memory since the first moment I heard his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I'd spoken at the Bureau, who had helped me in the matter of the trunk, who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening as he passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his very tread. It was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under the dripping trees. It was to be concluded that this young surgeon physician's first visit to the Rue Forset would be his last, the respectable doctor Pilul being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why his temporary substitute should again represent him. But the fates had written their decree to the contrary. Dr. Pileul had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the antique university town of Bouquin Moisy, and upon his prescribing change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the timid patient on a tour of some weeks. It but remained, therefore, for the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette. I often saw him when he came, for Madame would not trust the little invalid to Trinet, but required me to spend much of my time in the nursery. I think he was skilful. Fiffine recovered rapidly under his care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase, and upper chambers of the Rue Forset. No sooner did Fiffine emerge from his hands than Desires declared herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick room, she came to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her tastes and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother still better, for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well assumed air of gravity and good faith. What surprised me was that Dr. John, so the young Englishman had taught Fiffine to call him, and as we all took from the habit of addressing him by this name till it became an established custom, and he was well known by no other in Rue Forset, that Dr. John consented tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics and to fall in with her manoeuvre. He portrayed indeed a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of self consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to play his part in the farce. Desire ate like a raven, gambled day and night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged like a turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing her shoes at her bon and grimacing at her sisters, overflowed in short, with unmerited health and evil spirits, only languishing when her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit. Madame Beck, I knew, was glad at any price to have her daughter in bed out of the way of mischief, but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the business. Every day on this mere pretext of a motive he gave punctual attendance. Madame always received him with the same empressement, the same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame caught his rallying looks without resenting them. She had too much good sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not despise him. This pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design to curry favour with his employer. While he liked his office at the Pensionin and lingered strangely about the Rue Forset, he was independent, almost careless in his carriage there, and yet, too, he was often thoughtful and preoccupied. It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing, or search out its origin or aim, but placed as I was, I could hardly help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my presence in the room, just that degree of notice and consequence a person of my exterior habitually expects, that is to say, about what is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks himself alone. I mean time as free to puzzle over his countenance and movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar interest and attachment, all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell which wedded him to this demi convent, secluded in the built up core of a capital. He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain behind them. Nor would he have ever found this out, but that one day while he sat in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair, whiskers, and complexion, the whole being of such a tone as a strong light brings out with somewhat perilous force. Indeed, I recollect I was driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts, so that of the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, an idea new, sudden and startling, riveted my attention with an overmastering strength and power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him. The force of surprise and also of conviction made me forget myself, and I only recovered wanted consciousness when I saw that his notice was arrested and that it caught my movement in a clear little oval mirror fixed in the side of the window recess, by the aid of which reflector, Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not without a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease under a direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and said in a tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character of rebuke. Mademoiselle does not spare me. I am not vain enough to fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention. It must then be some defect. Dare I ask what? I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an irrevocable confusion, being conscious that it was from no emotion of incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable inquisitiveness that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak, I was not in the habit of speaking to him, suffering him then to think what he chose, and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had dropped, and kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his stay. There is a perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by misconstruction, and in quarters where we can never be rightly known, we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest man on being casually taken for a housebreaker does not feel rather tickled than vexed at the mistake. Mrs Proudy's reception concluded Bishop of Barchester, I presume, said Bertie Stanhope, putting out his hand frankly, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance. We are in rather close quarters here, ain't we? In truth they were. They had been crowded up behind the head of the sofa, the bishop in waiting to receive his guest and the other in carrying her, and they now had hardly room to move themselves. The bishop gave his hand quickly and made his little studded bow, and was delighted to make he couldn't go on, for he didn't know whether his friend was a senior or a count or a prince. My sister really puts you all to great trouble, said Bertie. Not at all. The bishop was delighted to have the opportunity of welcoming the Signor Vincinaroni, so at least he said, and attempted to force his way around to the front of the sofa. He had at any rate learnt that his strange guests were brother and sister. The man he presumed must be Signor Vincinaroni, or Count or Prince, as it might be. It was wonderful what good English he spoke. There was just a twang of the A foreign accent and no more. Do you like Barchester on the whole? asked Bertie. The bishop looked dignified and said that he did like Barchester. You've not been here very long, I believe, said Bertie. No, not long, said the bishop, and tried again to make his way between the back of the sofa and a heavy rector, who was staring over it at the grimaces of the Signora. You weren't a bishop before, were you? Dr. Proudie explained that this was the first diocese he had held. I thought so, said Bertie, but you are changed about sometimes, ain't you? Translations are occasionally made, said Dr. Proudie, but not so frequently as in former days. They've cut them all down to pretty nearly the same figure, haven't they? said Bertie. To this the bishop could not bring himself to make any answer, but again attempted to move the rector. But the work, I suppose, is different, continued Bertie. Is there much to do here at Barchester? This was said exactly in the tone that a young admiralty clerk might use in asking the same question of a brother accolyte at the Treasury. The work of a bishop of the Church of England, said Dr. Proudie, with considerable dignity, is not easy. The responsibility which he has to bear is very great indeed. Is it? said Bertie, opening wide his wonderful blue eyes. Well, I never was afraid of responsibility. I once had thoughts of being a bishop myself. Had thoughts of being a bishop? said Dr. Proudie, much amazed. That is, a parson, a parson at first, you know, and a bishop afterwards. If I had once begun, I'd have stuck to it. But on the whole I like the Church of Rome the best. The bishop could not discuss the point, so he remained silent. Now, there's my father, continued Bertie. He hasn't stuck to it. I fancy he didn't like saying the same thing over so often. By the bye, Bishop, have you seen my father? The Bishop was more amazed than ever. Had he seen his father? No, he replied. He had not yet had the pleasure. He hoped he might, and as he said so he resolved to bear heavy on that fat, immovable rector if he ever had the power of doing so. He's in the room somewhere, said Bertie, and he'll turn up soon. By the bye, do you know much about the Jews? At last the bishop saw a way out. I beg your pardon, said he, but I'm forced to go round the room. Well, I believe I'll follow in your wake, said Bertie. Terribly hot, isn't it? This he addressed to the fat rector with whom he had brought himself into the closest contact. They've got this sofa into the worst possible part of the room. Suppose we move it. Take care, Madeline. The sofa had certainly been so placed that those who were behind it found great difficulty in getting out. There was but a narrow gangway which one person could stop. This was a bad arrangement and one which Bertie thought it might be well to improve. Take care, Madeline, said he, and turning to the fat rector, added, just help me with a slight push. The rector's weight was resting on the sofa, and unwittingly lent all its impetus to accelerate and increase the motion which Bertie intentionally originated. The sofa rushed from its moorings and ran halfway into the middle of the room. Mrs. Proudie was standing with Mr Slope in front of the Signora, and had been trying to be condescending and sociable, but she was not in the very best of tempers, for she found that whenever she spoke to the lady, the lady replied by speaking to Mr Slope. Mr Slope was a favourite, no doubt, but Mrs. Proudie had no idea of being less thought of than the chaplain. She was beginning to be stately, stiff and offended, when unfortunately the caster of the sofa caught itself in her lace train and carried away there is no saying how much of her garniture. Gathers were heard to go, stitches to crack, plates, plates, plaits to fly open, flounces were seen to fall, and breads to expose themselves. A long ruin of rent lace disfigured the carpet and still clung to the vile wheel on which the sofa moved. So when a granite battery is raised, excellent to the eyes of warfaring men, is its strength and symmetry admired. It is the work of years, its neat embrasures, its finished parapets, its casemated stories show all the skill of modern science, but anon a small spark is applied to the treacherous fuse, a cloud of dust arises to the heavens, and then nothing is to be seen but dirt and dust and ugly fragments. We know what the wrath of Juno when her beauty was despised, we know too what storms of passion, even celestial minds can yield. As Juno may have looked at Paris on Mount Ida, so did Mrs Proudie look on Ethelbert Stanhope when he pushed the leg of the sofa into her lace train. Oh you idiot, Bertie, said the Signora, seeing what had been done, and what were to be the consequences. Idiot re echoed Mrs. Proudie, as though the word were not half strong enough to express the required meaning. I'll let him know. And then looking round to learn at a glance the worst, she saw that at present it behoved her to collect the scattered debris of her dress. Bertie, when he saw what he had done, rushed over the sofa and threw himself on one knee before the offended lady. His object, doubtless, was to liberate the torn lace from the caster, but he looked as though he were imploring pardon from a goddess. Unhand it, sir, said Mrs. Proudie, from what the scrap of dramatic poetry she had extracted the word cannot be said, but it must have rested on her memory. And now seemed opportunely dignified for the occasion. I'll fly to the looms of the fairies to repair the damage, if you'll only forgive me, said Ethelbert, still on his knees. Unhand it, sir, said Mrs. Proudie, with redoubled emphasis and all but furious wrath. This allusion to the fairies was a direct mockery and intended to turn her into ridicule, so at least it seemed to her. Unhand it, sir, she almost screamed. It's not me, it's the cursed sofa, said Bertie, looking imploringly in her face, and holding up both his hands to show that he was not touching her belongings, but still remaining on his knees. Hereupon the Signora laughed, not loud indeed, but yet audibly. And as the tigress bereft of her young will turn with equal anger on any within reach, so did Mrs. Proudie turn upon her female guest. Madame, she said, and it is beyond the power of prose to tell of the fire which flashed from her eyes. The Signora stared her full in the face for a moment, and then, turning to her brother, said playfully Bertie, you idiot, get up. By this time the bishop and Mr Slope and her three daughters were around her and had collected together the wide ruins of her magnificence. The girls fell into circular rank behind their mother, and thus following her and carrying out the fragments they left the reception rooms in a manner not altogether devoid of dignity. Mrs. Proudie had to retire and rearray herself. As soon as the constellation had swept by, Ethelbert rose from his knees, and turning with mock anger to the fat rector, said After all, it was your doing, sir, not mine, but perhaps you are waiting for preferment, and so I bore it. Whereupon there was a laugh against the Fat Rector, in which both the bishop and the chaplain joined, and thus things got themselves again into order. Oh my lord, I'm so sorry for this accident, said the Signora, putting out her hand so as to force the bishop to take it. My brother is so thoughtless. Pray sit down and let me have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. Though I am so poor a creature as to want a sofa, I am not so selfish as to require it all. Madeline could always dispose herself so as to make room for a gentleman, though as she declared, the crinoline of her lady friends was much too bulky to be so accommodated. It was solely for the pleasure of meeting you that I have made myself dragged here, she continued. Of course with your occupation one cannot even hope that you should have time to come to us, that is, in the way of calling, and at your English dinner parties all is so dull and so stately. Do you know, my lord, that in coming to England my only consolation has been the thought that I should know you? And she looked at him with the look of a she devil. The bishop, however, thought that she looked very like an angel, and accepting the proffered seat, sat down beside her. He uttered some platitude as to his deep obligation for the trouble she had taken, and wondered more and more who she was. Of course you know my sad story, she continued. The bishop didn't know a word of it. He knew, however, or thought he knew, that she couldn't walk into a room like other people, and so made the most of that. He put on a look of ineffable distress and said that he was aware how God had afflicted her. The Signora just touched the corner of her eyes with the most lovely of pocket handkerchiefs. Yes, she said she had been sorely tried, tried, she thought, beyond the common endurance of humanity, but while her child was left to her, everything was left. Oh my lord, she exclaimed, you must see that infant, the last bud of a wondrous tree. You must let a mother hope that you will lay your holy hands on her innocent head and consecrate her for female virtues. May I hope it? said she, looking into the bishop's eye, and touching the bishop's arm with her hand. The bishop was but a man, and said she might. After all, what was it but a request that he could confirm her daughter, a request indeed very unnecessary to make, as he should do so in a matter of course if the young lady came forward in the usual way. The blood of Tiberius, said the Signora, in all but a whisper, the blood of Tiberius flows in her veins. She is the last of the Neroes. The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to have the last of the Neroes thus brought before him for a blessing was very staggering. Still he liked the lady. She had a proper way of thinking, and talked with more propriety than her brother. But who were they? It was now quite clear that the blue madman with the silky beard was not a Prince Vincineroni. The lady was married and was, of course, one of the Vincinerones by right of the husband. So the bishop went on learning. When will you see her? said the Signora with a start. See whom? said the bishop. My child, said the mother. Oh what is the young lady's age? asked the bishop. She is just seven, said the Signora. Oh, said the bishop, shaking his head, she is much too young, very much too young. But in sunny Italy, you know, we do not count by years. And the Signora gave the bishop one of her very sweetest smiles. But indeed, she is a great deal too young, persisted the bishop. We never confirm before. But you might speak to her, you might let her hear, from your consecrated lips that she is not a castaway because she is Roman, that she may be a Nero and yet a Christian, that she may owe her black locks and dark cheeks to the blood of the pagan Caesars, and yet herself be a child of grace. You will tell her this, won't you, my friend? The friend said he would, and asked if the child could say her catechism. No, said the Signora, I would not allow her to learn lessons such as those in a land ridden over by priests and polluted by the idolatry of Rome. It is here, here in Barchester that she must first be taught to lisp those holy words. Oh that you could be her instructor. Now, doctor Proudie certainly liked the lady, but seeing that he was a bishop, it was not probable that he was going to instruct a little girl in the first rudiments of her catechism, so he said he'd send a teacher. But you'll see her yourself, my lord. The bishop said he would, but where should he call? At papa's house, said the Signora, with an air of some little surprise at the question. The bishop actually wanted the courage to ask who was her papa, so he was forced at last to leave her without fathoming the mystery. Mrs. Proudie, in her second best, had now returned to the rooms, and her husband thought it as well that he should not remain in too close conversation with the lady whom his wife appeared to hold in such slight esteem. Presently he came across his youngest daughter. Netta, said he, do you know who is the father of that Signora Vicini Roni? It isn't Vicini Roni, papa, said Netta, but Vasy Neroni, and she's doctor Stanhope's daughter. But I must go and do the civil to Grislda Grantly. I declare nobody has spoken a word to the poor girl this evening. Doctor Stanhope? Doctor Vasy Stanhope? Dr Vasy Stanhope's daughter, of whose marriage with a dissolute Italian scamp he now remembered to have heard something. And that impertinent blue cub who had examined him as to his episcopal bearings was old Stanhope's son, and the lady who had entreated him to come and teach her child the catechism was old Stanhope's daughter, the daughter of one of his own prebendaries. As these things flashed across his mind he was nearly as angry as his wife had been. Nevertheless he could not but own but that the mother of the last of the Neroes was an agreeable woman. And we will leave it at that at this moment. And we'll finish with a poem, and many of you might know the author of the poem, or the poet, I should just say, but I'll say it at the end so you can have a little guess. I won't give the title either. Five years have passed, five summers with the length of five long winters, and again I hear these waters rolling from their mountain springs, with a soft inland murmur. Once again do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs that on a wild secluded scene impress thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky. The days come when I again repose here under this dark sycamore, and view these plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts, which at these season, with their unripe fruits, are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves mid groves and copses. Once again I see these hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines of sportive wood run wild, these pastoral farms green to the very door, and wreaths of smoke sent up in silence from among the trees, with some uncertain notice, as might seem of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, or of some hermit's cave, by which his fire the hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms through a long absence have not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man's eye, but oft in lonely rooms and mid the din of towns and cities, I have owed to them in hours of weariness, sensations sweet, felt in the blood and felt along the heart, and passing even into my purer mind, with tranquil restoration, feelings too of unremembered pleasure, such perhaps, as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man's life, his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love, nor less I trust to them I may have owed another another gift, of aspect more sublime, that blessed mood in which the burden of the mystery, in which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world is lightened, that serene and blessed mood in which the affections gently lead us on, until the breath of this corporeal frame and even the motion of our human blood almost suspended we are laid asleep in body and become a living soul, while with an eye made quiet by the power of harmony and the deep power of joy we see into the life of things, if this be but a vain belief, yet oh how oft in darkness and amid the many shapes of joy joyless daylight, when the fretful stir unprofitable and the fever of the world have hung upon the beatings of my heart. How often in spirit have I turned to thee, O Sylvan why thou wanderer through the woods, how often has my spirit turned to thee, and now with gleams of half extinguished thought, with many recognitions dim and faint, and somewhat of sad perplexity, the picture of the mind revives again, while I stand here, not only with the sense of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts that in this moment there is life and food for future years, and so I dare to hope, though changed no doubt from what I was when first I came among these hills, when like a row I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides of the deep rivers and the lonely streams, wherever nature led, more like a man flying from something that he dreads, than one who sought the thing he loved, for nature then, the coarser pleasures of my boyish days and their glad animal movements all gone by, to me all in all, I cannot paint what I was then, the sounding cataract haunted me like a passion, the tall rock, the mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, their colours and their forms were then to me an appetite, a feeling and a love that had no need of a remoter charm, by thought supplied nor any interest unborrowed from the eye, that time is past and all its aching joys are now no more and all its dizzy raptures, not for this faint eye nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts have followed, for such loss I would believe, abundant recompense, for I have learned to look on nature not as in the hour of thoughtless death. Youth, but hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity, nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue, and I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky and in the mind of man a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things. Therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods and mountains and of all that we behold from this green earth, of all the mighty world, of eye and ear, both what they half create and what perceive, well pleased to recognise in nature and the language of the sense, the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart and soul of all my moral being, nor perchance, if I were not thus taught, should I the more suffer my genial spirits to decay, for thou art with me here upon the banks of this fair river, thou, my dearest friend, my dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch the language of my former heart, and read my former pleasures in the shooting lights of thy wild eyes. Oh yet a little while may I behold in thee what I was once, my dear dear sister, and this prayer I make, knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her. Tis a privilege through all the years of this our life to lead from joy to joy, for she can so inform the mind that is within us, so impress with quietness and beauty, and so feed with lofty thoughts that neither evil tongues, rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all the dreary intercourse of daily life shall eer prevail against us or disturb our cheerful faith, that all which we behold is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon shine on thee in thy solitary walk, and let the misty mountain winds be free to blow against thee, and in after years, when these wild ecstasies shall be matured into a sober pleasure, when thy mind shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, thy memory be as a dwelling place for all sweet sounds and harmonies, oh then, if solitude or fear or pain or grief should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts of tender joy wilt thou remember me, and these my exhortations, nor perchance if I should be, where I no more, can hear thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams of past experience, wilt thou then forget that on the banks of this delightful stream we stood together, and that I, so long a worshipper of nature, hither came unwearied in that service, rather say with warmer love, oh with far deeper zeal, of holier love, nor wilt thou then forget that after many wanderings, many years of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, and this green pastoral landscape were to me more dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. Wordsworth Tinton Abbey Good night.