The evening of Thursday, the 15th of February, 1827, was one of the most
delightful I ever remember to have spent. I was alone; my heart beat
lightly; my pulse was quickened by the exercise of the morning; my blood
flowed freely through my veins, as meeting with no checks or impediments
to its current, and my spirits were elated by a multitude of happy
remembrances and of brilliant hopes. My apartments looked delightfully
comfortable, and what signified to me the inclemency of the weather
without. The rain was pattering upon the sky-light of the staircase; the
sharp east wind was moaning angrily in the chimney; but as my eye glanced
from the cheerful blaze of the fire to the ample folds of my closed
window-curtains--as the hearth-rug yielded to the pressure of my foot,
while, beating time to my own music, I sung, in rather a louder tone than
usual, my favourite air of "_Judy O'Flannegan_;"--the whistling of the
wind, and the pattering of the rain, only served to enhance in my
estimation the comforts of my home, and inspire a livelier sense of the
good fortune which had delivered me from any evening engagements. It may
be questioned, whether there are any hours in this life, of such unmixed
enjoyment as the few, the very few, which a young bachelor is allowed to
rescue from the pressing invitations of those dear friends, who want
another talking man at their dinner tables, or from those many and
wilily-devised entanglements which are woven round him by the hands of
inevitable mothers, and preserve entirely to himself.--Talk of the
pleasure of repose! What repose can possibly be so sweet, as that which is
enjoyed on a disengaged day during the laborious dissipations of a London
life?--Talk of the delights of solitude! Spirit of Zimmerman!--What
solitude is the imagination capable of conceiving so entirely delightful,
as that which a young unmarried man possesses in his quiet lodging, with
his easy chair and his dressing-gown, his beef-steak, and his whisky and
water, his nap over an old poem or a new novel, and the intervening
despatch of a world of little neglected matters, which, from time to time,
occur to recollection between the break of the stanzas or the incidents of
the story?
Such were the reflections that hastily passed along my mind, on the
afternoon of Thursday, the 15th of February, 1827, as I sat with a volume
of the _Tor Hill_ in my hand, in the back drawing-room of my lodging in
Conduit-street. It was about ten o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was
just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and
irrepressible propensity of elocution, which result from a satisfied
appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became
more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eye around my apartment, and
contemplated my well-filled book-case, and the many articles of
convenience with which I had contrived to accommodate my nest; till, at
length, the emotions of satisfaction became too strong to be restrained
within the bonds of silence, and announced themselves in the following
soliloquy:--
"What capital coals these are!--There's nothing in the world so cheering--
so enlivening--as a good, hot, blazing, sea-coal fire."--I broke a large
lump into fragments with the poker, as I spoke--"It's all mighty fine," I
continued, "for us travellers to harangue the ignorant on the beauty of
foreign cities, on their buildings without dust, and their skies without a
cloud; but, for my own part, I like to see a dark, thick, heavy
atmosphere, hanging over a town. It forewarns the traveller of his
approach to the habitations, the business, and the comforts of his
civilized fellow-creatures. It gives an air of grandeur, and importance,
and mystery, to the scenes: it conciliates our respect. We know that there
must be some fire where there is so much smother.--While, in those bright,
shining, smokeless cities, whenever the sun shines upon them, one's eyes
are put out by the glare of their white walls; and when it does not
shine!--why, in the winter, there's no resource left for a man but
hopeless and shivering resignation, with their wide, windy chimneys, and
their damp, crackling, hissing, sputtering, tantalizing fagots."--I
confirmed my argument in favour of our metropolitan obscurity by another
stroke of the poker against the largest fragment of the broken coal; and
then, letting fall my weapon, and turning my back to the fire, I
exclaimed, "Certainly--there's no kind of furniture like books:--nothing
else can afford one an equal air of comfort and habitability.--Such a
resource too!--A man never feels alone in a library.--He lives surrounded
by companions, who stand ever obedient to his call, coinciding with every
caprice of temper, and harmonising with every turn and disposition of the
mind.--Yes: I love my book:--they are my friends--my counsellors--my
companions.--Yes; I have a real personal attachment, a very tender regard,
for my books."
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my dressing-gown, which, by the by,
is far the handsomest piece of old brocade I have ever seen,---a large
running pattern of gold hollyhocks, with silver stalks and leaves, upon a
rich, deep, Pompadour-coloured ground,--and, walking slowly backwards and
forwards in my room, I continued,--"There never was, there never can have
been, so happy a fellow as myself! What on earth have I to wish for more?
Maria adores me--I adore Maria. To be sure, she's detained at Brighton;
but I hear from her regularly every morning by the post, and we are to be
united for life in a fortnight. Who was ever so blest in his love? Then
again John Fraser--my old schoolfellow! I don't believe there's anything
in the world he would not do for me. I'm sure there's no living thing that
he loves so much as myself, except, perhaps, his old uncle Simon, and his
black mare."
I had by this time returned to the fireplace, and, reseating myself, began
to apostrophize my magnificent black Newfoundland, who, having partaken of
my dinner, was following the advice and example of Abernethy, and sleeping
on the rug, as it digested.--"And you, too, my old Neptune, aren't you the
best and handsomest dog in the universe?"
Neptune finding himself addressed, awoke leisurely from his slumbers, and
fixed his eyes on mine with an affirmative expression.
"Ay, to be sure you are; and a capital swimmer too!"
Neptune raised his head from the rug, and beat the ground with his tail,
first to the right hand, and then to the left.
"And is he not a fine faithful fellow? And does he not love his master?"
Neptune rubbed his head against my hand, and concluded the conversation,
by again sinking into repose.
"That dog's a philosopher," I said; "He never says a word more than is
necessary:--then, again, not only blest in love and friendship, and my dog;
but what luck it was to sell, and in these times too, that old, lumbering
house of my father's, with its bleak, bare, hilly acres of chalk and
stone, fat eighty thousand pounds, and to have the money paid down, on the
very day the bargain was concluded. By the by, though, I had forgot:--I
may as well write to Messrs. Drax and Drayton about that money, and order
them to pay it immediately to Coutts's,--mighty honest people and all that:
but faith, no solicitors should be trusted or tempted too far. It's a
foolish way, at any time, to leave money in other people's hands--in
anybody's hands--and I'll write about it at once."
As I said, so I did. I wrote my commands Messrs. Drax and Drayton, to pay
my eighty thousand pounds into Coutts's; and after desiring that my note
might be forwarded to them, the first thing in the morning, I took my
candle, and accompanied by Neptune, who always keeps watch by night at my
chamber door, proceeded to bed, as the watchman was calling "past twelve
o'clock," beneath my window.
_Blackwood's Magazine_.
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