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The Ayrshire Legatees-Part7_John Galt(1779-1839)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Miss Isabella Tod, Mrs. Glibbans and her daughter Becky, with Miss



Nanny Eydent, together with other friends of the minister's family,

dined at the manse, and the conversation being chiefly about the



concerns of the family, the letters were produced and read.

LETTER XII



Andrew Pringle, Esq., to the Rev. Charles Snodgrass--WINDSOR,

CASTLE-INN.



My Dear Friend--I have all my life been strangelysusceptible of

pleasing impressions from public spectacles where great crowds are



assembled. This, perhaps, you will say, is but another way of

confessing, that, like the common vulgar, I am fond of sights and



shows. It may be so, but it is not from the pageants that I derive

my enjoyment. A multitude, in fact, is to me as it were a strain of



music, which, with an irresistible and magical influence, calls up

from the unknown abyss of the feelings new combinations of fancy,



which, though vague and obscure, as those nebulae of light that

astronomers have supposed to be the rudiments of unformed stars,



afterwards become distinct and brilliant acquisitions. In a crowd,

I am like the somnambulist in the highest degree of the luminous



crisis, when it is said a new world is unfolded to his

contemplation, wherein all things have an intimateaffinity with the



state of man, and yet bear no resemblance to the objects that

address themselves to his corporeal faculties. This delightful



experience, as it may be called, I have enjoyed this evening, to an

exquisite degree, at the funeral of the king; but, although the



whole succession of incidents is indelibly imprinted on my

recollection, I am still so much affected by the emotion excited, as



to be incapable of conveying to you any intelligible description of

what I saw. It was indeed a scene witnessed through the medium of



the feelings, and the effect partakes of the nature of a dream.

I was within the walls of an ancient castle,



"So old as if they had for ever stood,

So strong as if they would for ever stand,"



and it was almost midnight. The towers, like the vast spectres of

departed ages, raised their embattled heads to the skies, monumental



witnesses of the strength and antiquity of a great monarchy. A

prodigious multitude filled the courts of that venerable edifice,



surrounding on all sides a dark embossed structure, the sarcophagus,

as it seemed to me at the moment, of the heroism of chivalry.



"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream," and I beheld the scene

suddenly illuminated, and the blaze of torches, the glimmering of



arms, and warriors and horses, while a mosaic of human faces covered

like a pavement the courts. A deep low under sound pealed from a



distance; in the same moment, a trumpet answered with a single

mournful note from the stateliest and darkest portion of the fabric,



and it was whispered in every ear, "It is coming." Then an awful

cadence of solemn music, that affected the heart like silence, was



heard at intervals, and a numerous retinue of grave and venerable

men,



"The fathers of their time,

Those mighty master spirits, that withstood



The fall of monarchies, and high upheld

Their country's standard, glorious in the storm,"



passed slowly before me, bearing the emblems and trophies of a king.

They were as a series of great historical events, and I beheld



behind them, following and followed, an awful and indistinct image,

like the vision of Job. It moved on, and I could not discern the



form thereof, but there were honours and heraldries, and sorrow, and

silence, and I heard the stir of a profoundhomage performing within






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