THE CAPTIVE. 37 



our happiness, were we deprived of only a small 

 portion of nature, or of one of those senses which 

 were given to us for the purpose of knowing it, 

 we would prize senses and their objects far more 

 than we do. It is a dismal thing for an innocent 

 man to be cooped up within the four walls of a 

 .dungeon for life, with only a little glimmer of re- 

 flected light coming through the grating, and 

 never to behold the direct light of the sun. But 

 even in that situation, the man may study nature : 

 there is that reflected glimmer fading off into the 

 darker tints : there are the different spots and the 

 colours they reflect; and the motes are dancing 

 even in that dim light ; and the spider is busy in 

 the corner ; and, it may be, that things which a 

 man, in the free air, would call loathsome, are 

 crawling about the floor. But the solitary man 

 can make all these lowly things his kingdom ; can 

 claim brotherhood with the spider, the snail, and 

 the lizard ; and, if his heart has been true to na- 

 ture and to man, he will kneel down and thank 

 Heaven as fervently for its bounty, when the morn- 

 ing gives him the first dawning of that streamy 

 light, as if he beheld the sun rise on the sweetest 

 valley in England, and could call all that valley his 

 own : and, let but one drop of the bitter waters of 

 remorse for wrong done, fall in the rich man's free 

 and full cup, and he would give the solitary all 

 his wealth for an exchange of feeling. 



We would consider it a piece of most wanton 

 cruelty, to build up the little grating the dim 

 light to the captive ; but even that would not de- 

 prive him of the pleasure of nature : even then, he 

 might " touch the earth," and, by so touching, 

 his mind woulcl rise up and wrestle with the giant, 



