The Lifted Veil | Page 7

in their
regal gold-inwoven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that the broad
river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I
passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their
ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real
inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men and
women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants
infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I thought,
who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned
time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their
court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches its
monotonous length on the height; who worship wearily in the stifling
air of the churches, urged by no fear or hope, but compelled by their
doom to be ever old and undying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, as
they live on in perpetual midday, without the repose of night or the new
birth of morning.
A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and I became
conscious of the objects in my room again: one of the fire- irons had
fallen as Pierre opened the door to bring me my draught. My heart was
palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draught beside
me; I would take it presently.
As soon as I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether I had been
sleeping. Was this a dream--this wonderfully distinct vision- -minute in
its distinctness down to a patch of rainbow light on the pavement,
transmitted through a coloured lamp in the shape of a star--of a strange
city, quite unfamiliar to my imagination? I had seen no picture of
Prague: it lay in my mind as a mere name, with vaguely-remembered
historical associations--ill-defined memories of imperial grandeur and
religious wars.
Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in my dreaming experience
before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only
saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent
terrors of nightmare. But I could not believe that I had been asleep, for

I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision upon me,
like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing distinctness of
the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the morning mist. And while
I was conscious of this incipient vision, I was also conscious that Pierre
came to tell my father Mr. Filmore was waiting for him, and that my
father hurried out of the room. No, it was not a dream; was it--the
thought was full of tremulous exultation--was it the poet's nature in me,
hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself
suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer
saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that
Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter. Was it that my illness
had wrought some happy change in my organization--given a firmer
tension to my nerves--carried off some dull obstruction? I had often
read of such effects--in works of fiction at least. Nay; in genuine
biographies I had read of the subtilizing or exalting influence of some
diseases on the mental powers. Did not Novalis feel his inspiration
intensified under the progress of consumption?
When my mind had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it seemed
to me that I might perhaps test it by an exertion of my will. The vision
had begun when my father was speaking of our going to Prague. I did
not for a moment believe it was really a representation of that city; I
believed--I hoped it was a picture that my newly liberated genius had
painted in fiery haste, with the colours snatched from lazy memory.
Suppose I were to fix my mind on some other place--Venice, for
example, which was far more familiar to my imagination than Prague:
perhaps the same sort of result would follow. I concentrated my
thoughts on Venice; I stimulated my imagination with poetic memories,
and strove to feel myself present in Venice, as I had felt myself present
in Prague. But in vain. I was only colouring the Canaletto engravings
that hung in my old bedroom at home; the picture was a shifting one,
my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more vivid images; I could
see no accident of form or shadow without conscious labour after the
necessary conditions. It was all prosaic effort, not rapt passivity, such
as I had experienced half an hour before. I was discouraged; but I
remembered that inspiration was fitful.

For several days I was in a state of excited expectation, watching for a