I Would Go To Sleep Dwelling With
Restfulness Upon These Images; They Passed Before Me, Besides, To
An Appropriate Music;
For I had already singled out from that rude
psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of
All, not
growing old, not disgraced by its association with long Sunday
tasks, a scarce conscious joy in childhood, in age a companion
thought:-
'In pastures green Thou leadest me,
The quiet waters by.'
The remainder of my childish recollections are all of the matter of
what was read to me, and not of any manner in the words. If these
pleased me it was unconsciously; I listened for news of the great
vacant world upon whose edge I stood; I listened for delightful
plots that I might re-enact in play, and romantic scenes and
circumstances that I might call up before me, with closed eyes,
when I was tired of Scotland, and home, and that weary prison of
the sick-chamber in which I lay so long in durance. Robinson
Crusoe; some of the books of that cheerful, ingenious, romantic
soul, Mayne Reid; and a work rather gruesome and bloody for a
child, but very picturesque, called Paul Blake; these are the three
strongest impressions I remember: The Swiss Family Robinson came
next, longo intervallo. At these I played, conjured up their
scenes, and delighted to hear them rehearsed unto seventy times
seven. I am not sure but what Paul Blake came after I could read.
It seems connected with a visit to the country, and an experience
unforgettable.
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