I could only hear now and then the shouts of
the school-boys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the
sound of a bell tolling for prayers echoing soberly along the
roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew
fainter and fainter, and at length died away; the bell ceased to
toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall.
I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in
parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a
venerable elbow-chair. Instead of reading, however, I was
beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the
place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old
volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves
and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but
consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors,
like mummies, are piously entombed and left to blacken and
moulder in dusty oblivion.
How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside
with such indifference, cost some aching head! how many weary
days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried
themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters, shut
themselves up from the face of man, and the still more blessed
face of Nature; and devoted themselves to painful research and
intense reflection! And all for what? To occupy an inch of dusty
shelf--to have the titles of their works read now and then in a
future age by some drowsy churchman or casual straggler like
myself, and in another age to be lost even to remembrance.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209