BENEATH AN UMBRELLA

By Nathaniel Hawthorne



Pleasant is a rainy winter's day, within doors! The best study for
such a day, or the best amusement,--call it which you will,--is a
book of travels, describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one,
which is mistily presented through the windows. I have experienced,
that fancy is then most successful in imparting distinct shapes and
vivid colors to the objects which the author has spread upon his
page, and that his words become magic spells to summon up a thousand
varied pictures. Strange landscapes glimmer through the familiar
walls of the room, and outlandish figures thrust themselves almost
within the sacred precincts of the hearth. Small as my chamber is, it
has space enough to contain the ocean-like circumference of an
Arabian desert, its parched sands tracked by the long line of a
caravan, with the camels patiently journeying through the heavy
sunshine. Though my ceiling be not lofty, yet I can pile up the
mountains of Central Asia beneath it, till their summits shine far
above the clouds of the middle atmosphere. And, with my humble
means, a wealth that is not taxable, I can transport hither the
magnificent merchandise of an Oriental bazaar, and call a crowd of
purchasers from distant countries, to pay a fair profit for the
precious articles which are displayed on all sides. True it is,
however, that amid the bustle of traffic, or whatever else may seem to
be going on around me, the rain-drops will occasionally be heard to
patter against my window-panes, which look forth upon one of the
quietest streets in a New England town. After a time, too, the