extended itself to the summer as well; for she who had ceased to
stand on ceremony in the winter, could hardly without additional
loss of dignity reascend her pedestal only because it was summer
again. To the laird it was a matter of no consequence where he sat,
ate, or slept. When his wife was alive, wherever she was, that was
the place for him; when she was gone, all places were the same to
him. There was, besides, that in the disposition of the man which
tended to the homely:--any one who imagines that in the least
synonymous with the coarse, or discourteous, or unrefined, has yet
to understand the essentials of good breeding. Hence it came that
the other rooms of the house were by degrees almost neglected. Both
the dining-room and drawing-room grew very cold, cold as with the
coldness of what is dead; and though he slept in the same part of
the house by choice, not often did the young laird enter either.
But he had concerning them, the latter in particular, a notion of
vastness and grandeur; and along with that, a vague sense of
sanctity, which it is not quite easy to define or account for. It
seems however to have the same root with all veneration for
place--for if there were not a natural inclination to venerate
place, would any external reason make men capable of it? I think we
shall come at length to feel all places, as all times and all
spaces, venerable, because they are the outcome of the eternal
nature and the eternal thought. When we have God, all is holy, and
we are at home.



CHAPTER III.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.