Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers | Page 3

nation in which these events occurred, chiefly out of
consideration for the descendants of one person concerned in the
narrative: otherwise, it might not have been requisite: for it is proper to
mention, that every person directly a party to the case has been long
laid in the grave: all of them, with one solitary exception, upwards of

fifty years.
* * * * *
It was early spring in the year 17--; the day was the 6th of April; and
the weather, which had been of a wintry fierceness for the preceding six
or seven weeks--cold indeed beyond anything known for many years,
gloomy for ever, and broken by continual storms--was now by a
Swedish transformation all at once bright, genial, heavenly. So sudden
and so early a prelusion of summer, it was generally feared, could not
last. But that only made every body the more eager to lose no hour of
an enjoyment that might prove so fleeting. It seemed as if the whole
population of the place, a population among the most numerous in
Christendom, had been composed of hybernating animals suddenly
awakened by the balmy sunshine from their long winter's torpor.
Through every hour of the golden morning the streets were resonant
with female parties of young and old, the timid and the bold, nay, even
of the most delicate valetudinarians, now first tempted to lay aside their
wintry clothing together with their fireside habits, whilst the whole
rural environs of our vast city, the woodlands, and the interminable
meadows began daily to re-echo the glad voices of the young and jovial
awaking once again, like the birds and the flowers, and universal nature,
to the luxurious happiness of this most delightful season.
Happiness do I say? Yes, happiness; happiness to me above all others.
For I also in those days was among the young and the gay; I was
healthy; I was strong; I was prosperous in a worldly sense! I owed no
man a shilling; feared no man's face; shunned no man's presence. I held
a respectable station in society; I was myself, let me venture to say it,
respected generally for my personal qualities, apart from any
advantages I might draw from fortune or inheritance; I had reason to
think myself popular amongst the very slender circle of my
acquaintance; and finally, which perhaps was the crowning grace to all
these elements of happiness, I suffered not from the presence of ennui,
nor ever feared to suffer: for my temperament was constitutionally
ardent; I had a powerful animal sensibility; and I knew the one great
secret for maintaining its equipoise, viz., by powerful daily exercise;
and thus I lived in the light and presence, or, (if I should not be
suspected of seeking rhetorical expressions, I would say,) in one eternal
solstice of unclouded hope.

These, you will say, were blessings; these were golden elements of
felicity. They were so; and yet, with the single exception of my healthy
frame and firm animal organization, I feel that I have mentioned
hitherto nothing but what by comparison might be thought of a vulgar
quality. All the other advantages that I have enumerated, had they been
yet wanting, might have been acquired; had they been forfeited, might
have been reconquered; had they been even irretrievably lost, might, by
a philosophic effort, have been dispensed with; compensations might
have been found for any of them, many equivalents, or if not,
consolations at least, for their absence. But now it remains to speak of
other blessings too mighty to be valued, not merely as transcending in
rank and dignity all other constituents of happiness, but for a reason far
sadder than that--because, once lost, they were incapable of restoration,
and because not to be dispensed with; blessings in which 'either we
must live or have no life:' lights to the darkness of our paths and to the
infirmity of our steps--which, once extinguished, never more on this
side the gates of Paradise can any man hope to see re-illumined for
himself. Amongst these I may mention an intellect, whether powerful
or not in itself, at any rate most elaborately cultivated; and, to say the
truth, I had little other business before me in this life than to pursue this
lofty and delightful task. I may add, as a blessing, not in the same
positive sense as that which I have just mentioned, because not of a
nature to contribute so hourly to the employment of the thoughts, but
yet in this sense equal, that the absence of either would have been an
equal affliction,--namely, a conscience void of all offence. It was little
indeed that I, drawn by no necessities of situation into temptations of
that nature, had done no injury to any man. That was fortunate; but I