Part 11 (2/2)

'Mon cur est un luth suspendu, Sitot qu'on le touche, il resonne.'

I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were certainly a part of it for me.

And this happened to me in the place of all others where I liked least to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingrat.i.tude. 'Out of the strong came forth sweetness.' There, in the bleak and gusty North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I saw the sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that little corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will find something to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country without some amenity-let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he will surely find.

Footnotes

{92} The Second Part here referred to is ent.i.tled 'ACROSS THE PLAINS,'

and is printed in the volume so ent.i.tled, together with other Memories and Essays.

{106} I had nearly finished the transcription of the following pages when I saw on a friend's table the number containing the piece from which this sentence is extracted, and, struck with a similarity of t.i.tle, took it home with me and read it with indescribable satisfaction. I do not know whether I more envy M. Theuriet the pleasure of having written this delightful article, or the reader the pleasure, which I hope he has still before him, of reading it once and again, and lingering over the pa.s.sages that please him most.

{136} William Abercrombie. See _Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanae_, under 'Maybole' (Part iii.).

{147} 'Duex poures varlez qui n'ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la nuit avec les chiens.' See Champollion-Figeac's _Louis et Charles d'Orleans_, i. 63, and for my lord's English horn, _ibid._ 96.

{175} Reprinted by permission of John Lane.

{190} 'Jehovah Tsidkenu,' translated in the Authorised Version as 'The Lord our Righteousness' (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and x.x.xiii. 16).

{231} Compare Blake, in the _Marriage of Heaven and h.e.l.l_: 'Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are roads of Genius.'

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