for it by servile sophistry, as we see the huge serpent lick over its
trembling, helpless victim with its slime and poison, before it devours
it! On every stanza so penned would be written the word RECREANT! Every
taunt, every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and
freedom, would recall to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. And what shall we say to _him_--the
sleep-walker, the dreamer, the sophist, the word-hunter, the craver
after sympathy, but still vulnerable to truth, accessible to opinion,
because not sordid or mechanical? The Bourbons being no longer tied
about his neck, he may perhaps recover his original liberty of
speculating; so that we may apply to him the lines about his own
_Ancient Mariner_--

"And from his neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."


This is the reason I can write an article on the _Letter-Bell_, and
other such subjects; I have never given the lie to my own soul. If I
have felt any impression once, I feel it more strongly a second time;
and I have no wish to revile and discard my best thoughts. There is
at length a thorough _keeping_ in what I write--not a line that
betrays a principle or disguises a feeling. If my wealth is small, it
all goes to enrich the same heap; and trifles in this way accumulate to
a tolerable sum.--Or if the Letter-Bell does not lead me a dance into
the country, it fixes me in the thick of my town recollections, I know
not how long ago. It was a kind of alarm to break off from my work when
there happened to be company to dinner or when I was going to the play.
_That_ was going to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and