Читать книгу Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart онлайн
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She is not there.
—Oh, God! thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb—be kind!
The embers were dark; I stirred them; there was no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my tenant’s chamber had struck one.
I dashed a tear or two from my eyes; how they came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of thanks, that such desolation had not yet come nigh me; and a prayer of hope—that it might never come.
In a half hour more, I was sleeping soundly. My reverie was ended.
BY A CITY GRATE
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Blessed be letters—they are the monitors, they are also the comforters, and they are the only true heart-talkers! Your speech, and their speeches, are conventional; they are molded by circumstance; they are suggested by the observation, remark, and influence of the parties to whom the speaking is addressed, or by whom it may be overheard.
Your truest thought is modified half through its utterance by a look, a sign, a smile, or a sneer. It is not individual; it is not integral: it is social and mixed—half of you, and half of others. It bends, it sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens.