Switzer’s home-sickness. Amongst these is the want of hills. Oh! this waveless horizon.’
What fond, strange yearnings from the soul’s deep cell
Gush for the faces we no more shall see!
How are we haunted in the wind’s low tone
By voices that are gone!
Looks of familiar love that never more,
Never on earth, our aching eyes shall greet,
Past words of welcome to our household door,
And vanished smiles and sounds of parted feet,
Spring mid the murmurs of thy flowering trees.
Why, why revisit’st thou these?
Good lines! and it was great luck to meet with them at that moment, and I still think this morning it would be a want of confidence not to mention them to you. I made several sage original reflections besides all these quotations—one, that in this relaxing climate, where nobody has any nerves or spirits, it is lucky we can go out so little. ‘The common sun, the air, the skies,’ are too much for us, they are very affecting. Then, that as we must live in the house and in the dark, it was good economy of Providence to make Bengal so hideous. If it were beautiful nobody could see it, and, as it is a frightful plain, it is perhaps advantageous to see so little of it.
