in the orlando innamorato, malagigi, the necromancer, puts all the company to sleep by reading to them from a book. some books have this power of themselves and need no necromancer. fearing, gentle reader, that mine may be of this kind, i have provided these introductory chapters, from time to time, like stalls or misereres in a church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads over them, where thou mayest sit down and sleep.
no,--the figure is not a bad one. this book does somewhat resemble a minster, in the romanesque style, with pinnacles, and flying buttresses, and roofs,
"gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions
made of fine gold, with divers sundry dragons."
you step into its shade and coolness out of the hot streets of life; a mysterious light streams through the painted glass of the marigold windows, staining the cusps and crumpled leaves of the window-shafts, and the cherubs and holy-water-stoups below. here and there is an image of the virgin mary; and other images, "in divers vestures, called weepers, stand in housings made about the tomb"; and, above all, swells the vast dome of heaven, with its star-mouldings, and the flaming constellations, like the mosaics in the dome of st. peter's. have you not heard funeral psalms from the chauntry? have you not heard the sound of church-bells, as i promised; mysterious sounds from the past and future, as from the belfries outside the cathedral; even such a mournful, mellow, watery peal of bells, as is heard sometimes at sea, from cities afar off below the horizon?
i know not how this romanesque, and at times flamboyant, style of architecture may please thecritics. they may wish, perhaps, that i had omitted some of my many ornaments, my arabesques, and roses, and fantastic spouts, and holy-roods and gallilee-steeples. but would it then have been romanesque?
but perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of those, who think the days of romance gone forever. believe it not! o, believe it not! thou hast at this moment in thy heart as sweet a romance as was ever written. thou art not less a woman, because thou dost not sit aloft in a tower, with a tassel-gentle on thy wrist! thou art not less a man, because thou wearest no hauberk, nor mail-sark, and goest not on horseback after foolish adventures! nay, nay! every one has a romance in his own heart. all that has blessed or awed the world lies there; and
"the oracle within him, that which lives,
he must invoke and question,--not dead books,
not ordinances, not mould-rotten papers."
sooner or later some passages of every one's romance must be written, either in words or actions. they will proclaim the truth; for truth is thought, which has assumed its appropriate garments, either of words or actions; while falsehood is thought, which, disguised in words or actions not its own, comes before the blind old world, as jacob came before the patriarch isaac, clothed in the goodly raiment of his brother esau. and the world, like the patriarch, is often deceived; for, though the voice is jacob's voice, yet the hands are the hands of esau, and the false takes away the birth-right and the blessing from the true. hence it is, that the world so often lifts up its voice and weeps.
that very pleasing and fanciful chinese romance, the shadow in the water, ends with the hero's marrying both the heroines. i hope my gentle reader feels curious to know the end of this romance, which is a shadow upon the earth; and see whether there be any marriage at all in it.
that is the very point i am now thinking of, as i sit here at my pleasant chamber window, and enjoy the balmy air of a bright summer morning, and watch the motions of the golden robin, that sits on its swinging nest on the outermost, pendulous branch of yonder elm. the broad meadows and the steel-blue river remind me of the meadows of unterseen, and the river aar; and beyond them rise magnificent snow-white clouds, piled up like alps. thus the shades of washington and william tell seem to walk together on these elysian fields; for it was here, that in days long gone, our great patriot dwelt; and yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy alps, that they remind me irresistibly of the swiss. noble examples of a high purpose and a fixed will! do they not move, hyperion-like on high? were they not, likewise, sons of heaven and earth?
nothing can be more lovely than these summer mornings; nor than the southern window at which i sit and write, in this old mansion, which is like an italian villa. but o, this lassitude,--thisweariness,--when all around me is so bright! i have this morning a singular longing for flowers; a wish to stroll among the roses and carnations, and inhale their breath, as if it would revive me. i wish i knew the man, who called flowers "the fugitive poetry of nature." from this distance, from these scholastic shades,--from this leafy, blossoming, and beautiful cambridge, i stretch forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of a poet!--yes; this morning i would rather stroll with him among the gay flowers, than sit here and write. i feel so weary!
old men with their staves, says the spanish poet, are ever knocking at the door of the grave. but i am not old. the spanish poet might have included the young also.--no matter! courage, and forward! the romance must be finished; and finished soon.
o thou poor authorling! reach a little deeper into the human heart! touch those strings,--touch those deeper strings, and more boldly, or the notes will die away like whispers, and no earshall hear them, save thine own! and, to cheer thy solitary labor, remember, that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of oblivion. they are out of sight; but without them no superstructure can stand secure!
and now, reader, since the sermon is over, and we are still sitting here in this miserere, let us read aloud a page from the old parchment manuscript on the lettern before us; let us sing it through these dusky aisles, like a gregorian chant, and startle the sleeping congregation!
"i have read of the great river euripus, which ebbeth and floweth seven times a day, and with such violence, that it carrieth ships upon it with full sail, directly against the wind. seven times in an hour ebbeth and floweth rash opinion, in the torrent of indiscreet and troublesome apprehensions; carrying critic calumny and squint-eyed detraction mainly against the wind of wisdom and judgment."
in secula seculorum! amen!
