_By the late William Hazlitt._
Complaints are frequently made of the vanity and shortness of human
life, when, if we examine its smallest details, they present a world by
themselves. The most trifling objects, retraced with the eye of memory,
assume the vividness, the delicacy, and importance of insects seen
through a magnifying glass. There is no end of the brilliancy or the
variety. The habitual feeling of the love of life may be compared to
"one entire and perfect chrysolite," which, if analyzed, breaks into
a thousand shining fragments. Ask the sum-total of the value of human
life, and we are puzzled with the length of the account, and the
multiplicity of items in it: take any one of them apart, and it is
wonderful what matter for reflection will be found in it! As I write
this, the _Letter-Bell_ passes: it has a lively, pleasant sound
with it, and not only fills the street with its importunate clamour, but
rings clear through the length of many half-forgotten years. It strikes
upon the ear, it vibrates to the brain, it wakes me from the dream of
time, it flings me back upon my first entrance into life, the period
of my first coming up to town, when all around was strange, uncertain,
adverse--a hub-bub of confused noises, a chaos of shifting objects--and
when this sound alone, startling me with the recollection of a letter
I had to send to the friends I had lately left, brought me as it were
to myself, made me feel that I had links still connecting me with the
universe, and gave me hope and patience to persevere. At that loud
tinkling, interrupted sound (now and then,) the long line of blue hills
near the place where I was brought up waves in the horizon, a golden
sunset hovers over them, the dwarf-oaks rustle their red leaves in the
evening breeze, and the road from ---- to ----, by which I first set out
on my journey through life, stares me in the face as plain, but from
time and change not less visionary and mysterious, than the pictures in
the _Pilgrim's Progress_. I should notice, that at this time the
light of the French Revolution circled my head like a glory, though
dabbled with drops of crimson gore: I walked confident and cheerful
by its side--
"And by the vision splendid
Was on my way attended."
It rose then in the east: it has again risen in the west. Two suns in
one day, two triumphs of liberty in one age, is a miracle which I hope
the laureate will hail in appropriate verse. Or may not Mr. Wordsworth
give a different turn to the fine passage, beginning--
"What, though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever vanished from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?"
For is it not brought back, "like morn risen on mid-_night_;" and
may he not yet greet the yellow light shining on the evening bank with
eyes of youth, of genius, and freedom, as of yore? No, never! But what
would not these persons give for the unbroken integrity of their early
opinions--for one unshackled, uncontaminated strain--one _Io paean_
to Liberty--one burst of indignation against tyrants and sycophants,
who subject other countries to slavery by force, and prepare their own
for it by servile sophistry, as we see the huge serpent lick over its
trembling, helpless victim with its slime and poison, before it devours
it! On every stanza so penned would be written the word RECREANT! Every
taunt, every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and
freedom, would recall to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. And what shall we say to _him_--the
sleep-walker, the dreamer, the sophist, the word-hunter, the craver
after sympathy, but still vulnerable to truth, accessible to opinion,
because not sordid or mechanical? The Bourbons being no longer tied
about his neck, he may perhaps recover his original liberty of
speculating; so that we may apply to him the lines about his own
_Ancient Mariner_--
"And from his neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."
This is the reason I can write an article on the _Letter-Bell_, and
other such subjects; I have never given the lie to my own soul. If I
have felt any impression once, I feel it more strongly a second time;
and I have no wish to revile and discard my best thoughts. There is
at length a thorough _keeping_ in what I write--not a line that
betrays a principle or disguises a feeling. If my wealth is small, it
all goes to enrich the same heap; and trifles in this way accumulate to
a tolerable sum.--Or if the Letter-Bell does not lead me a dance into
the country, it fixes me in the thick of my town recollections, I know
not how long ago. It was a kind of alarm to break off from my work when
there happened to be company to dinner or when I was going to the play.
_That_ was going to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and
had not been more than half a dozen times in my life. Even the idea that
any one else in the house was going, was a sort of reflected enjoyment,
and conjured up a lively anticipation of the scene. I remember a Miss
D----, a maiden lady from Wales (who in her youth was to have been
married to an earl,) tantalized me greatly in this way, by talking all
day of going to see Mrs. Siddons' "airs and graces" at night in some
favourite part; and when the Letter-Bell announced that the time was
approaching, and its last receding sound lingered on the ear, or was
lost in silence, how anxious and uneasy I became, lest she and her
companion should not be in time to get good places--lest the curtain
should draw up before they arrived--and lest I should lose one line or
look in the intelligent report which I should hear the next morning! The
punctuating of time at that early period--every thing that gives it an
articulate voice--seems of the utmost consequence; for we do not know
what scenes in the _ideal_ world may run out of them: a world of
interest may hang upon every instant, and we can hardly sustain the
weight of future years which are contained in embryo in the most minute
and inconsiderable passing events. How often have I put off writing a
letter till it was too late! How often had to run after the postman with
it--now missing, now recovering, the sound of his bell--breathless,
angry with myself--then hearing the welcome sound come full round a
corner--and seeing the scarlet costume which set all my fears and
self-reproaches at rest! I do not recollect having ever repented giving
a letter to the postman, or wishing to retrieve it after he had once
deposited it in his bag. What I have once set my hand to, I take the
consequences of, and have been always pretty much of the same humour in
this respect. I am not like the person who, having sent off a letter to
his mistress, who resided a hundred and twenty miles in the country, and
disapproving, on second thoughts, of some expressions contained in it,
took a post-chaise and four to follow and intercept it the next morning.
At other times, I have sat and watched the decaying embers in a little
_back_ painting-room (just as the wintry day declined,) and brooded
over the half-finished copy of a Rembrandt, or a landscape by Vangoyen,
placing it where it might catch a dim gleam of light from the fire;
while the Letter-Bell was the only sound that drew my thoughts to the
world without, and reminded me that I had a task to perform in it. As to
that landscape, methinks I see it now--
"The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail."
There was a windmill, too, with a poor low clay-built cottage beside
it:--how delighted I was when I had made the tremulous, undulating
reflection in the water, and saw the dull canvass become a lucid mirror
of the commonest features of nature! Certainly, painting gives one a
strong interest in nature and humanity (it is not the _dandy-school_
of morals or sentiment)--
"While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things."
Perhaps there is no part of a painter's life (if we must tell "the
secrets of the prison-house") in which he has more enjoyment of himself
and his art, than that in which after his work is over, and with furtive
sidelong glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing his
brushes and cleaning his pallet for the day. Afterwards, when he gets
a servant in livery to do this for him, he may have other and more
ostensible sources of satisfaction--greater splendour, wealth, or fame;
but he will not be so wholly in his art, nor will his art have such a
hold on him as when he was too poor to transfer its meanest drudgery to
others--too humble to despise aught that had to do with the object of
his glory and his pride, with that on which all his projects of ambition
or pleasure were founded. "Entire affection scorneth nicer hands." When
the professor is above this mechanical part of his business, it may have
become a _stalking-horse_ to other worldly schemes, but is no longer
his _hobby-horse_ and the delight of his inmost thoughts--
"His shame in crowds, his solitary pride!"
I used sometimes to hurry through this part of my occupation, while the
Letter-Bell (which was my dinner-bell) summoned me to the fraternal
board, where youth and hope
"Made good digestion wait on appetite
And health on both"--
or oftener I put it off till after dinner, that I might loiter longer
and with more luxurious indolence over it, and connect it with the
thoughts of my next day's labours.
The dustman's-bell, with its heavy, monotonous noise, and the brisk,
lively tinkle of the muffin-bell, have something in them, but not much.
They will bear dilating upon with the utmost license of inventive prose.
All things are not alike _conductors_ to the imagination. A learned
Scotch professor found fault with an ingenious friend and arch-critic
for cultivating a rookery on his grounds: the professor declared
"he would as soon think of encouraging a _froggery_." This was
barbarous as it was senseless. Strange that a country that has produced
the Scotch Novels and Gertrude of Wyoming should want sentiment!
The postman's double-knock at the door the next morning is "more
germain to the matter." How that knock often goes to the heart!
We distinguish to a nicety the arrival of the Two-penny or the General
Post. The summons of the latter is louder and heavier, as bringing
news from a greater distance, and as, the longer it has been delayed,
fraught with a deeper interest. We catch the sound of what is to be
paid--eightpence, ninepence, a shilling--and our hopes generally rise
with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting change--at
the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the postman passes, and
we do not hear the expected knock, what a pang is there! It is like the
silence of death--of hope! We think he does it on purpose, and enjoys
all the misery of our suspense. I have sometimes walked out to see the
Mail-Coach pass, by which I had sent a letter, or to meet it when I
expected one. I never see a Mail-Coach, for this reason, but I look
at it as the bearer of glad tidings--the messenger of fate. I have
reason to say so.--The finest sight in the metropolis is that of the
Mail-Coaches setting off from Piccadilly. The horses paw the ground, and
are impatient to be gone, as if conscious of the precious burden they
convey. There is a peculiar secresy and despatch, significant and full
of meaning, in all the proceedings concerning them. Even the outside
passengers have an erect and supercilious air, as if proof against the
accidents of the journey. In fact, it seems indifferent whether they are
to encounter the summer's heat or winter's cold, since they are borne
through the air in a winged chariot. The Mail-Carts drive up; the
transfer of packages is made; and, at a signal given, they start off,
bearing the irrevocable scrolls that give wings to thought, and that
bind or sever hearts for ever. How we hate the Putney and Brentford
stages that draw up in a line after they are gone! Some persons think
the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the
ocean; but give me, for my private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that
pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour
the way before them to the Land's End!
In Cowper's time, Mail-Coaches were hardly set up; but he has
beautifully described the coming in of the Post-Boy:--
"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;--
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
And having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch!
Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes and the fall of stocks.
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
His horse and him, unconscious of them all."
And yet, notwithstanding this, and so many other passages that seem
like the very marrow of our being, Lord Byron denies that Cowper was a
poet!--The Mail-Coach is an improvement on the Post-Boy; but I fear it
will hardly bear so poetical a description. The picturesque and dramatic
do not keep pace with the useful and mechanical. The telegraphs that
lately communicated the intelligence of the new revolution to all France
within a few hours, are a wonderful contrivance; but they are less
striking and appalling than the beacon fires (mentioned by Aeschylus,)
which, lighted from hill-top to hill-top, announced the taking of Troy
and the return of Agamemnon.
_Monthly Magazine._
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