Ay! Great noise as we have made in the world—our heart's desire is for silence—its delight is in peace. And is it not so with all men, turbulent as may have been their lives, who have ever looked into their own being? The soul longs for peace in itself; therefore, wherever it discerns it, it rejoices in the image of which it seeks the reality. The serene human countenance, the wide water sleeping in the moonlight, the stainless marble-depth of the immeasurable heavens, reflect to it that tranquillity which it imagines within itself, though it never long dwelt there, restless as a dove on a dark tree that cannot be happy but in the sunshine. It loves to look on what it loves, even though it cannot possess it; and hence its feeling, on contemplating such calm, is not of simple repose, but desire stirs in it, as if it would fain blend itself more deeply with the quiet it beholds! The sleep of a desert would not so affect it; it is Beauty that makes the difference—that attracts spirit to matter, while spirit becomes not thereby materialised—but matter spiritualised; and we fluctuate in the air-boat of imagination between earth and heaven. In most and in all great instances there is apprehension, dim and faint, or more distinct, of pervasion of a spirit throughout that which we conceive Beautiful. Stars, the moon, the deep bright ether, waters, the rainbow, a pure lovely flower—none of them ever appear to us, or are believed by us to be mere physical and unconscious dead aggregates of atoms. That is what they are; but we could have no pleasure in them, if we knew them as such. There is illusion, then, of some sort, and to what does it amount? We cannot well tell. But if there is really a love in human hearts to these distant orbs—if there is an emotion of tenderness to the fair, opening, breathing blossom that we would not crush it—"in gentleness of heart touch, for there is a spirit in the leaves"—it must be that we do not see them as they are, but "create a soul under the ribs of death." We could not be touched, or care for what has no affinity to ourselves—we make the affinity—we animate, we vivify them, and thenceforward,
"Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus,
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
Now you do believe that we do love Silence—and every other thing worthy to be loved—you and yours—and even that romp, your shock-headed Coz, to whom Priscilla Tomboy was an Imogen.
All our ceilings are deadened—we walk ankle-deep in carpeting—nobody is suffered to open a door but ourselves—and they are so constructed, that it is out of their power to slam. Our winter furniture is all massy—deepening the repose. In all the large rooms two fireplaces—and fires are kept perpetually burning day and night, in them all, which, reflected from spacious mirrors, give the mansion quite the appearance of a Pandemonium. Not gas always. Palm-oil burns scentless as moonlight; and when motion, not rest, in a place is signified, we accompany ourselves with a wax candle, or taper from time immemorial green. Yet think not that there is a blaze of light. We have seen the midnight heaven and earth nearly as bright, with but one moon and a small scatter of stars. And places of glimmer—and places of gloom—and places "deaf to sound and blind to light" there are in this our mansion, known but to ourselves—cells—penitentiaries—where an old man may sit sighing and groaning, or stupified in his misery—or at times almost happy. So senseless, and worse than senseless, seems then all mortal tribulation and anguish, while the self-communing soul is assured, by its own profound responses, that "whatever is, is best."
And thus is our domicile a domain—a kingdom. We should not care to be confined to it all the rest of our days. Seldom, indeed, do we leave our own door—yet call on us, and ten to one you hear us in winter chirping like a cricket, or in summer like a grasshopper. We have the whole range of the house to ourselves, and many an Excursion make we on the Crutch. Ascending and descending the wide-winding stair-cases, each broad step not above two inches high, we find ourselves on spacious landing-places illumined by the dim religious light of stained windows, on which pilgrims, and palmers, and prophets, single or in pairs or troops, are travelling on missions through glens or forests or by sea-shores—or shepherd piping in the shade, or poet playing with the tangles of Neæra's hair. We have discovered a new principle on which, within narrow bounds, we have constructed Panoramic Dioramas, that show splendid segments of the great circle of the world. We paint all of them ourselves—now a Poussin, now a Thomson, now a Claude, now a Turner, now a Rubens, now a Danby, now a Salvator, now a Maclise.
Most people, nay, we suspect all people but ourselves, make a point of sleeping in the same bed (that is awkwardly expressed) all life through; and out of that bed many of them avow their inability to "bow an eye;" such is the power of custom, of habit, of use and wont, over weary mortals even in the blessing of sleep. No such slavish fidelity do we observe towards any one bed of the numerous beds in our mansion. No one dormitory is entitled to plume itself, in the pride of its heart, on being peculiarly Ours; nor is any one suffered to sink into despondency from being debarred the privilege of contributing to Our repose. They are all furnished, if not luxuriously, comfortably in the extreme; in number, nine—each, of course, with its two dressing-rooms—those on the same story communicating with one another, and with the parlours, drawing-rooms, and libraries—"a mighty maze, but not without a plan," and all harmoniously combined by one prevailing and pervading spirit of quietude by day and by night, awake or asleep—the chairs being couch-like, the couches bed-like, the beds, whether tent or canopy, enveloped in a drapery of dreams.
We go to bed at no stated hour—but when we are tired of sitting up, then do we lie down; at any time of the night or the day; and we rise, neither with the lark, nor the swallow, nor the sparrow, nor the cock, nor the owl, nor the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor Lucifer, nor Aurora, but with Christopher North. Yellow, or green, or blue, or crimson, or fawn, or orange, or pinky light salutes our eyes, as sleep's visionary worlds recede and relapse into airy nothing, and as we know of a certainty that these are real web-and-woof damask curtains, that flock palpable on substantial walls.
True wisdom soon accommodates itself even to involuntary or inevitable change—but to that which flows from our own sweet will, however sudden and strong, it instantly moulds itself in a novel delight, with all its familiar and domestic habits. Why, we have not been in 99 Moray Place for a week—nay, not for two days and nights—till you might swear we had been all our life a Cit, we look so like a Native. The rustic air of the Lodge has entirely left us, and all our movements are metropolitan. You see before you a Gentleman of the Old School, who knows that the eyes of the town are upon him when he seeks the open air, and who preserves, even in the privacy of the parlour, that dignity of dress and demeanour which, during winter, befits his age, his rank, and his character. Now, we shave every morning; John, who in his boyish days served under Barbarossa, lightly passes the comb through our "sable silvered;" and then, in our shawl dressing-gown, we descend about ten to our study, and sit, not unstately, beside the hissing urn at our protracted breakfast. In one little month or less, "or ere our shoes are old," we feel as if we had belonged to this house alone, and it to us, from our birth. The Lodge is seen to be standing in its stillness, far away! Dear memories of the pensive past now and then come floating upon the cheerful present—like birds of fairest plumage floating far inland from the main. But there is no idle longing—no vain regret. This, we say, is true wisdom. For each scene and season—each pleasure and place—ought to be trusted to itself in the economy of human life, and to be allowed its own proper power over our spirit. People in the country are often restless to return to town—and people in town unhappy till they rush away into the country—thus cheating their entire existence out of its natural calm and satisfaction. Not so we. We give both their due—and that due is an almost undivided delight in each while we live under its reign. For Nature, believe us, is no jealous mistress. She is an affectionate wife, who, being assured of his fidelity, is not afraid to trust her husband out of her sight,
"When still the town affairs do call him thence,"
and who waits with cheerful patience for his return, duly welcomed with a conjugal shower of smiles and kisses.