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sources of real misery. The luxury of command and the attentions of
servitude were lost. It is true that the necessaries of life were assembled
in such quantities, as to supply to superfluity the wants of the diminished
population; but still much labour was required to arrange these, as it
were, raw materials; and depressed by sickness, and fearful of the future,
we had not energy to enter boldly and decidedly on any system.
I can speak for myself--want of energy was not my failing. The intense
life that quickened my pulses, and animated my frame, had the effect, not
of drawing me into the mazes of active life, but of exalting my lowliness,
and of bestowing majestic proportions on insignificant objects--I could
have lived the life of a peasant in the same way--my trifling occupations
were swelled into important pursuits; my affections were impetuous and
engrossing passions, and nature with all her changes was invested in divine
attributes. The very spirit of the Greek mythology inhabited my heart; I
deified the uplands, glades, and streams, I
Had sight of Proteus coming from the sea;
And heard old Triton blow his wreathed horn.[1]
Strange, that while the earth preserved her monotonous course, I dwelt with
ever-renewing wonder on her antique laws, and now that with excentric wheel
she rushed into an untried path, I should feel this spirit fade; I
struggled with despondency and weariness, but like a fog, they choked me.
Perhaps, after the labours and stupendous excitement of the past summer,
the calm of winter and the almost menial toils it brought with it, were by
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