FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  
beauties, its lights,--not its defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good with one so unselfish and so gentle." In London, some years later:-- "He was still the same; time changed him very little. His conversation was as interesting as ever [he was always an excellent relater]; his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling; his smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever kind. All that was mean, or envious, or harsh, he seemed to turn from so completely that, when with him, it seemed that such things were not. All gentle and tender affections, Nature in her sweetest or grandest moods, pervaded his whole imagination, and left no place for low or evil thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, his droll descriptions, and his fun would make the gravest or the saddest laugh." As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, it is pertinent to quote a passage from what we gather to be a journal kept by Miss Flora Foster:-- "He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a true and dear friend, his love for E----, and his conviction of its utter hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind. Yet he cannot bear to give up our friendship,--an intercourse become so dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. Poor Irving!" It is well for our peace of mind that we do not know what is going down concerning us in "journals." On his way to the Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving wrote to Mrs. Foster:-- "When I consider how I have trifled with my time, suffered painful vicissitudes of feeling, which for a time damaged both mind and body,--when I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did not listen to the first impulse of my mind, and abandon Dresden long since. And yet I think of returning! Why should I come back to Dresden? The very inclination that dooms me thither should furnish reasons for my staying away." In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their right-angled, whitewashed world, were little attractive.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Dresden
 

Irving

 

Foster

 

Herrnhuthers

 

feeling

 
gentle
 
furnish
 

absence

 
happiness
 

intercourse


thither

 

thinks

 
friendship
 

unable

 
angled
 

friend

 
mother
 
attractive
 

confessed

 

whitewashed


conviction

 

reasons

 

hopelessness

 

staying

 

combat

 

vicissitudes

 

damaged

 

painful

 

written

 

trifled


suffered

 
abandon
 

reproach

 

listen

 

impulse

 
inclination
 

journals

 
returning
 

descriptions

 
London

unselfish
 

goodness

 
Indeed
 
people
 

changed

 

varying

 
relater
 

excellent

 
conversation
 

interesting