[Footnote 1: [so odd a Dream, that no one but the SPECTATOR could
believe that the Brain, clogged in Sleep, could furnish out such a
regular Wildness of Imagination.]
* * * * *
No. 393. Saturday, May 31, 1712. Addison.
'Nescio quâ præter solitum dulcedine læti.'
Virg.
Looking over the Letters that have been sent me, I chanced to find the
following one, which I received about two years ago from an ingenious
Friend, who was then in Denmark.
Copenhagen, May 1, 1710.
Dear Sir,
The Spring with you has already taken Possession of the Fields and
Woods: Now is the Season of Solitude, and of moving Complaints upon
trivial Sufferings: Now the Griefs of Lovers begin to flow, and their
Wounds to bleed afresh. I too, at this Distance from the softer
Climates, am not without my Discontents at present. You perhaps may
laugh at me for a most Romantick Wretch, when I have disclosed to you
the Occasion of my Uneasiness; and yet I cannot help thinking my
Unhappiness real, in being confined to a Region, which is the very
Reverse of Paradise. The Seasons here are all of them unpleasant, and
the Country quite Destitute of Rural Charms. I have not heard a Bird
sing, nor a Brook murmur, nor a Breeze whisper, neither have I been
blest with the Sight of a flow'ry Meadow these two years. Every Wind
here is a Tempest, and every Water a turbulent Ocean. I hope, when you
reflect a little, you will not think the Grounds of my Complaint in
the least frivolous and unbecoming a Man of serious Thought; since the
Love of Woods, of Fields and Flowers, of Rivers and Fountains, seems
to be a Passion implanted in our Natures the most early of any, even
before the Fair Sex had a Being.