Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the HeartJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
After he had settled the period of his journey, the next thing was to
settle the mode of travelling. It was very natural that, with great
wealth in possession, which he had never been allowed fully to enjoy,
he should dream of tasting the sweets of it in every possible manner,
and that the chariot-and-four should first present itself to his
imagination, as the only fitting way for him to seek the capital. He
had very nearly given orders for the horses, and had visions of going
at least thirteen miles an hour. Rapidity of motion is one of the
inherent joys of youth and vigour--it may be called, almost, a
necessity, and Morley was one of those who enjoy to the highest
extent that peculiar sensation which is produced by the rapid passing
of the fair objects of nature before the eye; tower and town, and
church-steeple, and green fields, and bright rivers, and tall trees,
and rich woods, resting just long enough upon the organs of vision to
call up sweet, but undefined imaginations, and then passing away--like
distant music which swells and falls upon the ear, bringing back
vaguely airs that we have heard elsewhere, and leaving fancy to play
them to an end.
He forgot, however, to give the order for the horses at the hour of
dinner, and afterwards he strolled out into the country round, and
visited the cottages of some of the peasantry who were reported to be
in a state of great poverty. He now saw real misery, for the first
time, and it had a powerful effect upon him. We have not space, dear
reader, to enter into the details; to paint the pale face of squalid
misery, and the eager anxious eyes of hopeless destitution. Suffice
it, that Morley Ernstein was young; his heart had not been hardened in
the furnace of the world, and it was not originally formed of that
adamantine stuff, called selfishness. He was not, as some, lavish in
his bounty, from mere want of any principle of action whatsoever; but
he relieved the unhappy people fully, and on his return home, gave
such directions, as to prevent their falling back into misery again
during his absence, except by their own fault.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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