Her looks were tranquil,
but with unusual solemnity of expression, and I now gazed upon her with
some awe; but suddenly her countenance grew dim, and turning to the
mountains I perceived vapours rolling between us. In a moment all had
vanished, thick darkness came on, and in the twinkling of an eye I was
far away from mountains, and by lamplight in Oxford Street, walking again
with Ann--just as we walked seventeen years before, when we were both
children.
As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820.
The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams--a
music of preparation and of awakening suspense, a music like the opening
of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like _that_, gave the feeling of a
vast march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of
innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day--a day of
crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious
eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not
where--somehow, I knew not how--by some beings, I knew not whom--a
battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, was evolving like a great
drama or piece of music, with which my sympathy was the more
insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature,
and its possible issue.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136