contemplations! Perhaps a star twinkles over it, and you muse on soft
eyes far away; while below at the threshold--No, phantoms! we see you
not from our attic. Note, yonder, that precipitous fall,--how ragged
and jagged the roof-scene descends in a gorge! He who would travel on
foot through the pass of that defile, of which we see but the
picturesque summits, stops his nose, averts his eyes, guards his
pockets, and hurries along through the squalor of the grim London
lazzaroni. But seen above, what a noble break in the sky-line! It
would be sacrilege to exchange that fine gorge for a dead flat of dull
rooftops. Look here, how delightful! that desolate house with no roof
at all,--gutted and skinned by the last London fire! You can see the
poor green-and-white paper still clinging to the walls, and the chasm
that once was a cupboard, and the shadows gathering black on the
aperture that once was a hearth! Seen below, how quickly you would
cross over the way! That great crack forebodes an avalanche; you hold
your breath, not to bring it down on your head. But seen above, what a
compassionate, inquisitive charm in the skeleton ruin! How your fancy
runs riot,--re-peopling the chambers, hearing the last cheerful good-
night of that destined Pompeii, creeping on tiptoe with the mother when
she gives her farewell look to the baby. Now all is midnight and
silence; then the red, crawling serpent comes out. Lo! his breath;
hark! his hiss. Now, spire after spire he winds and he coils; now he
soars up erect,--crest superb, and forked tongue,--the beautiful horror!
Then the start from the sleep, and the doubtful awaking, and the run
here and there, and the mother's rush to the cradle; the cry from the
window, and the knock at the door, and the spring of those on high
towards the stair that leads to safety below, and the smoke rushing up
like the surge of a hell! And they run back stifled and blinded, and
the floor heaves beneath them like a bark on the sea. Hark! the grating
wheels thundering low; near and nearer comes the engine. Fix the