It Was Late When I Reached Tonsberg, And I Was Glad To Go To Bed At
A Decent Inn.
The next morning the 17th of July, conversing with
the gentleman with whom I had business to transact, I found that I
should be detained at Tonsberg three weeks, and I lamented that I
had not brought my child with me.
The inn was quiet, and my room so pleasant, commanding a view of the
sea, confined by an amphitheatre of hanging woods, that I wished to
remain there, though no one in the house could speak English or
French. The mayor, my friend, however, sent a young woman to me who
spoke a little English, and she agreed to call on me twice a day to
receive my orders and translate them to my hostess.
My not understanding the language was an excellent pretext for
dining alone, which I prevailed on them to let me do at a late hour,
for the early dinners in Sweden had entirely deranged my day. I
could not alter it there without disturbing the economy of a family
where I was as a visitor, necessity having forced me to accept of an
invitation from a private family, the lodgings were so incommodious.
Amongst the Norwegians I had the arrangement of my own time, and I
determined to regulate it in such a manner that I might enjoy as
much of their sweet summer as I possibly could; short, it is true,
but "passing sweet."
I never endured a winter in this rude clime, consequently it was not
the contrast, but the real beauty of the season which made the
present summer appear to me the finest I had ever seen. Sheltered
from the north and eastern winds, nothing can exceed the salubrity,
the soft freshness of the western gales. In the evening they also
die away; the aspen leaves tremble into stillness, and reposing
nature seems to be warmed by the moon, which here assumes a genial
aspect. And if a light shower has chanced to fall with the sun, the
juniper, the underwood of the forest, exhales a wild perfume, mixed
with a thousand nameless sweets that, soothing the heart, leave
images in the memory which the imagination will ever hold dear.
Nature is the nurse of sentiment, the true source of taste; yet what
misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the
beautiful and sublime when it is exercised in observing animated
nature, when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive
sympathy, and the harmonised soul sinks into melancholy or rises to
ecstasy, just as the chords are touched, like the AEolian harp
agitated by the changing wind. But how dangerous is it to foster
these sentiments in such an imperfect state of existence, and how
difficult to eradicate them when an affection for mankind, a passion
for an individual, is but the unfolding of that love which embraces
all that is great and beautiful!
When a warm heart has received strong impressions, they are not to
be effaced.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 30 of 98
Words from 15146 to 15657
of 50703
