There are houses like Beaupre, a pile of
fantastic brick, haunted by innumerable phantoms, with its stately
orchard closes, or the exquisite gables of Snore Hall, of rich
Tudor brickwork, with fine panelling within. There is no lack of
shrines for pilgrimage--then, too, it is not difficult to persuade
some like-minded friend to share one's solitude. And so the quiet
hours tick themselves away in an almost monastic calm, while one's
book grows insensibly day by day, as the bulrush rises on the edge
of the dyke.
I do not say that it would be a life to live for the whole of a
year, and year by year. There is no stir, no eagerness, no brisk
interchange of thought about it. But for one who spends six months
in a busy and peopled place, full of duties and discussions and
conflicting interests, it is like a green pasture and waters of
comfort. The danger of it, if prolonged, would be that things would
grow languid, listless, fragrant like the Lotos-eaters' Isle; small
things would assume undue importance, small decisions would seem
unduly momentous; one would tend to regard one's own features as in
a mirror and through a magnifying glass.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32