THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
ANALECTS FROM RICHTER.
[THE HAPPY LIFE OF A PARISH PRIEST IN SWEDEN.]
Sweden apart, the condition of a parish priest is in itself sufficiently happy: in Sweden, then, much more so. There he enjoys summer and winter pure and unalloyed by any tedious interruptions: a Swedish spring, which is always a late one, is no repetition, in a lower key, of the harshness of winter, but anticipates, and is a prelibation of, perfect summer,--laden with blossoms,--radiant with the lily and the rose: insomuch, that a Swedish summer night represents implicitly one half of Italy, and a winter night one half of the world beside.
I will begin with winter, and I will suppose it to be Christmas. The priest, whom we shall imagine to be a German, and summoned from the southern climate of Germany upon presentation to the church of a Swedish hamlet lying in a high polar latitude, rises in cheerfulness about seven o'clock in the morning; and till half past nine he burns his lamp. At nine o'clock, the stars are still shining, and the unclouded moon even yet longer. This prolongation of star-light into the forenoon is to him delightful; for he is a German, and has a sense of something marvellous in a starry forenoon. Methinks, I behold the priest and his flock moving towards the church with lanterns: the lights dispersed amongst the crowd connect the congregation into the appearance of some domestic group or larger household, and carry the priest back to his childish years during the winter season and Christmas matins, when every hand bore its candle. Arrived at the pulpit, he declares to his audience the plain truth, word for word, as it stands in the Gospel: in the presence of God, all intellectual pretensions are called upon to be silent; the very reason ceases to be reasonable; nor is anything reasonable in the sight of God but a sincere and upright heart.
Just as he and his flock are issuing from the church the bright Christmas sun ascends above the horizon, and shoots his beams upon their faces. The old men, who are numerous in Sweden, are all tinged with the colors of youth by the rosy morning-lustre; and the priest, as he looks away from them to mother earth lying in the sleep of winter, and to the churchyard, where the flowers and the men are all in their graves together, might secretly exclaim with the poet: "Upon the dead mother, in peace and utter gloom, are reposing the dead children. After a time, uprises the everlasting sun; and the mother starts up at the summons of the heavenly dawn with a resurrection of her ancient bloom:--And her children?--Yes: but they must wait awhile."
At home he is awaited by a warm study, and a "long-levelled rule" of sunlight upon the book-clad wall.
The afternoon he spends delightfully; for, having before him such perfect flower-stand of pleasures, he scarcely knows where he should settle. Supposing it to be Christmas-day, he preaches again: he preaches on a subject which calls up images of the beauteous eastern-land, or of eternity. By this time, twilight and gloom prevailed through the church: only a couple of wax-lights upon the altar throw wondrous and mighty shadows through the aisles: the angel that hangs down from the roof above the baptismal font is awoke into a solemn life by the shadows and the rays, and seems almost in the act of ascension: through the windows, the stars or the moon are beginning to peer: aloft, in the pulpit, which is now hid in gloom, the priest is inflamed and possessed by the sacred burden of glad tidings which he is announcing: he is lost and insensible to all besides; and from amidst the darkness which surrounds him, he pours down his thunders, with tears and agitation, reasoning of future worlds, and of the heaven of heavens, and whatsoever else can most powerfully shake the heart and the affections.