I left East Rusoer the day before yesterday. The weather was very fine;
but so calm that we loitered on the water near fourteen hours, only to
make about six and twenty miles.
It seemed to me a sort of emancipation when we landed at Helgeraac. The
confinement which everywhere struck me whilst sojourning amongst the
rocks, made me hail the earth as a land of promise; and the situation
shone with fresh lustre from the contrast--from appearing to be a free
abode. Here it was possible to travel by land--I never thought this a
comfort before--and my eyes, fatigued by the sparkling of the sun on the
water, now contentedly reposed on the green expanse, half persuaded that
such verdant meads had never till then regaled them.
I rose early to pursue my journey to Tonsberg. The country still wore a
face of joy--and my soul was alive to its charms. Leaving the most lofty
and romantic of the cliffs behind us, we were almost continually
descending to Tonsberg, through Elysian scenes; for not only the sea,
but mountains, rivers, lakes, and groves, gave an almost endless variety
to the prospect. The cottagers were still carrying home the hay; and the
cottages on this road looked very comfortable. Peace and plenty--I mean
not abundance--seemed to reign around--still I grew sad as I drew near
my old abode. I was sorry to see the sun so high; it was broad noon.
Tonsberg was something like a home--yet I was to enter without lighting
up pleasure in any eye. I dreaded the solitariness of my apartment, and
wished for night to hide the starting tears, or to shed them on my
pillow, and close my eyes on a world where I was destined to wander
alone. Why has nature so many charms for me--calling forth and
cherishing refined sentiments, only to wound the breast that fosters
them? How illusive, perhaps the most so, are the plans of happiness
founded on virtue and principle; what inlets of misery do they not open
in a half-civilised society? The satisfaction arising from conscious
rectitude, will not calm an injured heart, when tenderness is ever
finding excuses; and self-applause is a cold solitary feeling, that
cannot supply the place of disappointed affection, without throwing a
gloom over every prospect, which, banishing pleasure, does not exclude
pain. I reasoned and reasoned; but my heart was too full to allow me to
remain in the house, and I walked, till I was wearied out, to purchase
rest--or rather forgetfulness.
Employment has beguiled this day, and to-morrow I set out for Moss, on
my way to Stromstad. At Gothenburg I shall embrace my Fannikin; probably
she will not know me again--and I shall be hurt if she do not. How
childish is this! still it is a natural feeling. I would not permit
myself to indulge the "thick coming fears" of fondness, whilst I was
detained by business. Yet I never saw a calf bounding in a meadow, that
did not remind me of my little frolicker. A calf, you say. Yes; but a
capital one I own.
I cannot write composedly--I am every instant sinking into reveries--my
heart flutters, I know not why. Fool! It is time thou wert at rest.
Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how
little is there of either in the world, because it requires more
cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts,
than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as
they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised
confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on
weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the
bewitching graces of childhood again appearing. As objects merely to
exercise my taste, I therefore like to see people together who have an
affection for each other; every turn of their features touches me, and
remains pictured on my imagination in indelible characters. The zest of
novelty is, however, necessary to rouse the languid sympathies which
have been hackneyed in the world; as is the factitious behaviour,
falsely termed good-breeding, to amuse those, who, defective in taste,
continually rely for pleasure on their animal spirits, which not being
maintained by the imagination, are unavoidably sooner exhausted than the
sentiments of the heart. Friendship is in general sincere at the
commencement, and lasts whilst there is anything to support it; but as a
mixture of novelty and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall
with the slender stay. The fop in the play paid a greater compliment
than he was aware of when he said to a person, whom he meant to flatter,
"I like you almost as well as a _new acquaintance_." Why am I talking
of friendship, after which I have had such a wild-goose chase. I thought
only of telling you that the crows, as well as wild-geese, are here
birds of passage.