And tuning its song in the porches of light,
Seems to sorrow that e'er it must sink to the earth.
Come swear then--but what can I swear in return?--
To remember thee ever wherever I rove,
Though my heart may be dead, and my breast but its urn,
I offer thee friendship--'tis better than love.
DOMESTIC LIFE IN FRANCE.
Mortel, qui que tu sois, prince, brame, ou soldat,
Homme! ta grandeur stir la terre
N'appartient point à ton état,
Elle est toute à ton caractère.--Beaumarchais.
There are two words wanting in French which an Englishman can scarcely do without, comfort and home. The hiatus is not alone in the language, the idea is wanting. Speak to a Frenchman of pleasure, he can understand you--of gaiety, amusement, dissipation, he has no difficulty: but talk to him of comfort, and explain it how you will, you can never make it intelligible to him. In like manner, he will comprehend everything that can be said on the theatre, the coffee-house, the club, the court, or the exchange; but home--there is no such thing. Chez-soi is not the word: intérieur comes nearer to it, for that particularises, but still it is not home--home, where all the affections of domestic life, all the kindly feelings of the heart, all the bright weaknesses of an immortal spirit clad in clay--where all, all the rays of life centre, like a gleam of sunshine breaking through a cloud, and lighting up one spot in the landscape while all the rest is wrapt in shadow. We may carry ambition, pride, vengeance, hatred, avarice, about with us in the world; but every gentler feeling is for home: and miserable is he who finds no such resting-place in the wide desert of human existence.