The sea was forgotten again at a distant view of exquisite miniatures;
he admired a precious missal in manuscript, adorned with arabesques in
gold and blue. Thoughts of peaceful life swayed him; he devoted
himself afresh to study and research, longing for the easy life of the
monk, devoid alike of cares and pleasures; and from the depths of his
cell he looked out upon the meadows, woods, and vineyards of his
convent. Pausing before some work of Teniers, he took for his own the
helmet of the soldier or the poverty of the artisan; he wished to wear
a smoke-begrimed cap with these Flemings, to drink their beer and join
their game at cards, and smiled upon the comely plumpness of a peasant
woman. He shivered at a snowstorm by Mieris; he seemed to take part in
Salvator Rosa's battle-piece; he ran his fingers over a tomahawk form
Illinois, and felt his own hair rise as he touched a Cherokee
scalping-knife. He marveled over the rebec that he set in the hands of
some lady of the land, drank in the musical notes of her ballad, and
in the twilight by the gothic arch above the hearth he told his love
in a gloom so deep that he could not read his answer in her eyes.
He caught at all delights, at all sorrows; grasped at existence in
every form; and endowed the phantoms conjured up from that inert and
plastic material so liberally with his own life and feelings, that the
sound of his own footsteps reached him as if from another world, or as
the hum of Paris reaches the towers of Notre Dame.
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