THE LETTER-BELL

The Monthly Magazine.][March, 1831.

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 analysed, 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, theLetter-Bellpasses: 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 hubbub 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 eveningbreeze,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 thePilgrim’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 comfortable and cheerful by its side—

‘And by the vision splendidWas on my way attended.’

‘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 hourOf glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?’

‘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—oneIo pæanto 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 should be written the wordRecreant! Every taunt, every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and freedom, would recal to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And what shall we say tohim—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 ownAncient Mariner—

‘And from his neck so freeThe Albatross fell off, and sankLike lead into the sea.’

‘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 theLetter-Bell, and other such subjects; I have never given the lie to my own soul. If Ihave felt any impression once, I feel it more strongly a second time; and I have no wish to revile or discard my best thoughts. There is at least a thoroughkeepingin 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.Thatwas 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), tantalised 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 theidealworld 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 littlebackpainting-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-blossomed vale,The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail.’

‘The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed 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 canvas become a lucid mirror of the commonest features of nature! Certainly, painting gives one a strong interest in nature and humanity (it is not thedandy-schoolof morals or sentiment)—

‘While with an eye made quiet by the powerOf harmony and the deep power of joy,We see into the life of things.’

‘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 astalking-horseto other worldly schemes, but is no longer hishobby-horseand 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 appetiteAnd health on both—’

‘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 licence of inventive prose. All things are not alikeconductorsto 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 afroggery.’ 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—eight-pence, nine-pence, 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 on 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 isa 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 lengthBestrides the wintry flood, in which the moonSees 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 concernIs 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 griefPerhaps 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 wetWith tears that trickled down the writer’s cheeksFast as the periods from his fluent quill,Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swainsOr nymphs responsive, equally affectHis horse and him, unconscious of them all.’

‘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 Æschylus), which, lighted from hill-top to hill-top, announced the taking of Troy, and the return of Agamemnon.

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