Though love is generally termed a
flame; and it may not be necessary much longer to suppose men
inspired by heaven to inculcate the duties which demand special
grace when reason convinces them that they are the happiest who are
the most nobly employed.
In a few days I am to set out for the western part of Norway, and
then shall return by land to Gothenburg. I cannot think of leaving
this place without regret. I speak of the place before the
inhabitants, though there is a tenderness in their artless kindness
which attaches me to them; but it is an attachment that inspires a
regret very different from that I felt at leaving Hull in my way to
Sweden. The domestic happiness and good-humoured gaiety of the
amiable family where I and my Frances were so hospitably received
would have been sufficient to ensure the tenderest remembrance,
without the recollection of the social evening to stimulate it, when
good breeding gave dignity to sympathy and wit zest to reason.
Adieu! - I am just informed that my horse has been waiting this
quarter of an hour. I now venture to ride out alone. The steeple
serves as a landmark. I once or twice lost my way, walking alone,
without being able to inquire after a path; I was therefore obliged
to make to the steeple, or windmill, over hedge and ditch.
Yours truly.
LETTER IX.
I have already informed you that there are only two noblemen who
have estates of any magnitude in Norway. One of these has a house
near Tonsberg, at which he has not resided for some years, having
been at court, or on embassies. He is now the Danish Ambassador in
London. The house is pleasantly situated, and the grounds about it
fine; but their neglected appearance plainly tells that there is
nobody at home.
A stupid kind of sadness, to my eye, always reigns in a huge
habitation where only servants live to put cases on the furniture
and open the windows. I enter as I would into the tomb of the
Capulets, to look at the family pictures that here frown in armour,
or smile in ermine. The mildew respects not the lordly robe, and
the worm riots unchecked on the cheek of beauty.
There was nothing in the architecture of the building, or the form
of the furniture, to detain me from the avenue where the aged pines
stretched along majestically. Time had given a greyish cast to
their ever-green foliage; and they stood, like sires of the forest,
sheltered on all sides by a rising progeny. I had not ever seen so
many oaks together in Norway as in these woods, nor such large
aspens as here were agitated by the breeze, rendering the wind
audible - nay musical; for melody seemed on the wing around me.
