1831.] The Letter-Bell. 281 



Shadow of Death. And what shall we Bay to Azw 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 least 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 cau hardly sus- 

 tain 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 

 hnmour 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 con- 

 tained 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 

 M.M. New Series. VOL. XL No. 63. 2 O 



