g
Morgana metamorphosed into Lady Curryfin? The time had been when he had
half wished it, as the means of restoring him to liberty. He felt
now that when in her society he could not bear the idea; but he still
thought that in the midst of his domestic deities he might become
reconciled to it.
He did not care for horses, nor keep any for his own use. But as time
and weather were not always favourable to walking, he had provided for
himself a comfortable travelling-chariot, without a box to intercept the
view, in which, with post-horses after the fashion of the olden time, he
performed occasional migrations. He found this vehicle of great use in
moving to and fro between the Grange and the Tower; for then, with all
his philosophy, Impatience was always his companion: Impatience on his
way to the Grange, to pass into the full attraction of the powerful
spell by which he was drawn like the fated ship to the magnetic rock
in the _Arabian Nights_: Impatience on his way to the Tower, to find
himself again in the 'Regions mild of pure and serene air,' in which the
seven sisters seemed to dwell, like Milton's ethereal spirits 'Before
the starry threshold of Jove's court.' Here was everything to soothe,
nothing to irritate or disturb him: nothing on the spot: but it was
with him, as it is with many, perhaps with all: the two great enemies
of tranquillity, Hope and Remembrance, would still intrude: not like a
bubble and a spectre, as in the beautiful lines of Coleridge:{1}
Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,
On him but seldom, Power divine,
Thy spirit rests. Satiety,
And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope,
And dire Remembrance, interlope,
And vex the feverish slumbers of the mind:
The bubble floats before: the spectre stalks behind.
--Coleridge's Ode to Tranquillity.
for the remembrance of Morgana was not a spectre, and the hope of her
love, which he cherished in spite of himself, was not a bubble: but
their forces were not less disturbing, even in the presence of his
earliest and most long and deeply cherished associations.
He did not allow his impatience to require that the horses should be
put to extraordinary speed. He found something tranquillising in the
movement of a postilion in a smart jacket, vibrating on one horse
upwards and downwards, with one invariable regulated motion like the
|