My Poetical Temperament Evinced Itself At A Very Early Period.
The
Village church was attended every Sunday by a neighboring squire - the
lord of the manor, whose park stretched
Quite to the village, and whose
spacious country seat seemed to take the church under its protection.
Indeed, you would have thought the church had been consecrated to him
instead of to the Deity. The parish clerk bowed low before him, and the
vergers humbled themselves into the dust in his presence. He always
entered a little late and with some stir, striking his cane
emphatically on the ground; swaying his hat in his hand, and looking
loftily to the right and left, as he walked slowly up the aisle, and
the parson, who always ate his Sunday dinner with him, never commenced
service until he appeared. He sat with his family in a large pew
gorgeously lined, humbling himself devoutly on velvet cushions, and
reading lessons of meekness and lowliness of spirit out of splendid
gold and morocco prayer-books. Whenever the parson spoke of the
difficulty of the rich man's entering the kingdom of heaven, the eyes
of the congregation would turn towards the "grand pew," and I thought
the squire seemed pleased with the application.
The pomp of this pew and the aristocratical air of the family struck My
imagination wonderfully, and I fell desperately in love with a little
daughter of the squire's about twelve years of age. This freak of fancy
made me more truant from my studies than ever.
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