h 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 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