or when, in those winter nights, the grim old tapestry waved in the
dim recesses, I hear again the Saxon thegn winding his horn at the
turret door, and demanding admittance to the halls from which the
prelate of Bayeux had so unrighteously expelled him [5]--what marvel,
that I lived in the times of which I wrote, Saxon with the Saxon,
Norman with the Norman--that I entered into no gossip less venerable
than that current at the Court of the Confessor, or startled my
fellow-guests (when I deigned to meet them) with the last news which
Harold's spies had brought over from the Camp at St. Valery? With all
those folios, giants of the gone world, rising around me daily, more
and more, higher and higher--Ossa upon Pelion--on chair and table,
hearth and floor; invasive as Normans, indomitable as Saxons, and tall
as the tallest Danes (ruthless host, I behold them still!)--with all
those disburied spectres rampant in the chamber, all the armour
rusting in thy galleries, all those mutilated statues of early English
kings (including St. Edward himself)--niched into thy grey, ivied
walls--say in thy conscience, O host, (if indeed that conscience be
not wholly callous!) shall I ever return to the nineteenth century
again?

But far beyond these recent associations of a single winter (for which
heaven assoil thee!) goes the memory of a friendship of many winters,
and proof to the storms of all. Often have I come for advice to your
wisdom, and sympathy to your heart, bearing back with me, in all such
seasons, new increase to that pleasurable gratitude which is, perhaps,
the rarest, nor the least happy sentiment, that experience leaves to
man. Some differences, it may be,--whether on those public questions
which we see, every day, alienating friendships that should have been
beyond the reach of laws and kings;--or on the more scholastic
controversies which as keenly interest the minds of educated men,--may