Such
is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary
rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has tolled
among these towers, filling the ear for a moment, lingering
transiently in echo, and then passing away, like a thing that was
not!
While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating, these unprofitable
speculations with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming
with the other hand upon the quarto, until I accidentally
loosened the clasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little
book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep,
then a husky hem, and at length began to talk. At first its voice
was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb which
some studious spider had woven across it, and having probably
contracted a cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of
the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and
I soon found it an exceedingly fluent, conversable little tome.
Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its
pronunciation what, in the present day, would be deemed
barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render
it in modern parlance.
It began with railings about the neglect of the world, about
merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such
commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bitterly
that it had not been opened for more than two centuries--that the
dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes took
down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments, and
then returned them to their shelves.
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