On Sunday I come down later than usual; I make a change of dress, for it
is fitting that the day of spiritual rest should lay aside the livery of
the laborious week. For me, indeed, there is no labour at any time, but
nevertheless does Sunday bring me repose. I share in the common
tranquillity; my thought escapes the workaday world more completely than
on other days.
It is not easy to see how this house of mine can make to itself a Sunday
quiet, for at all times it is well-nigh soundless; yet I find a
difference. My housekeeper comes into the room with her Sunday smile;
she is happier for the day, and the sight of her happiness gives me
pleasure. She speaks, if possible, in a softer voice; she wears a
garment which reminds me that there is only the lightest and cleanest
housework to be done. She will go to church, morning and evening, and I
know that she is better for it. During her absence I sometimes look into
rooms which on other days I never enter; it is merely to gladden my eyes
with the shining cleanliness, the perfect order, I am sure to find in the
good woman's domain. But for that spotless and sweet-smelling kitchen,
what would it avail me to range my books and hang my pictures? All the
tranquillity of my life depends upon the honest care of this woman who
lives and works unseen. And I am sure that the money I pay her is the
least part of her reward. She is such an old-fashioned person that the
mere discharge of what she deems a duty is in itself an end to her, and
the work of her hands in itself a satisfaction, a pride.
When a child, I was permitted to handle on Sunday certain books which
could not be exposed to the more careless usage of common days; volumes
finely illustrated, or the more handsome editions of familiar authors, or
works which, merely by their bulk, demanded special care. Happily, these
books were all of the higher rank in literature, and so there came to be
established in my mind an association between the day of rest and names
which are the greatest in verse and prose. Through my life this habit
has remained with me; I have always wished to spend some part of the
Sunday quiet with books which, at most times, it is fatally easy to leave
aside, one's very knowledge and love of them serving as an excuse for
their neglect in favour of print which has the attraction of newness.
Homer and Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare; not many Sundays have gone by
without my opening one or other of these. Not many Sundays? Nay, that
is to exaggerate, as one has the habit of doing. Let me say rather that,
on many a rest-day I have found mind and opportunity for such reading.
Nowadays mind and opportunity fail me never. I may take down my Homer or
my Shakespeare when I choose, but it is still on Sunday that I feel it
most becoming to seek the privilege of their companionship. For these
great ones, crowned with immortality, do not respond to him who
approaches them as though hurried by temporal care. There befits the
garment of solemn leisure, the thought attuned to peace. I open the
volume somewhat formally; is it not sacred, if the word have any meaning
at all? And, as I read, no interruption can befall me. The note of a
linnet, the humming of a bee, these are the sounds about my sanctuary.
The page scarce rustles as it turns.