 | The works of Washington Irving |  |
THE
MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE.
A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In time's great period shall return to naught.
I know that all the muse's heavenly layes,
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds of few or none are sought,
That there is nothing lighter than mere praise.
Drummond of Hawthornden.
There are certain half-dreaming
moods of mind, in which we naturally
steal away from noise and glare, and
seek some quiet haunt, where we may
indulge our reveries and build our air
castles undisturbed. In such a mood I
was loitering about the old gray cloisters
of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that
luxury of wandering thought which one
is apt to dignify with the name of reflection;
when suddenly an irruption of
madcap boys from Westminster School,
playing at football, broke in upon the
monastic stillness of the place, making
the vaulted passages and mouldering
tombs echo with their merriment. I
sought to take refuge from their noise
by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes
of the pile, and applied to one of
the vergers for admission to the library.
He conducted me through a portal rich
with the crumbling sculpture of former
ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage
leading to the chapter-house and
the chamber in which Doomsday Book is
deposited. Just within the passage is a
small door on the left. To this the
verger applied a key; it was double
locked, and opened with some difficulty,
as if seldom used. We now ascended a
dark narrow staircase, and, passing
through a second door, entered the
library.
I found myself in a lofty antique hall,
the roof supported by massive joists of
old English oak. It was soberly lighted
by a row of gothic windows at a considerable
height from the floor, and which
apparently opened upon the roofs of the
cloisters. An ancient picture of some
reverend dignitary of the church in his
robes hung over the fireplace. Around
the hall and in a small gallery were the
books, arranged in carved oaken cases.
They consisted principally of old polemical
writers, and were much more worn
by time than use. In the centre of the
library was a solitary table with two or
three books on it, an inkstand without
ink, and a few pens parched by long
disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet
study and profound meditation. It was
buried deep among the massive walls of
the abbey, and shut up from the tumult
of the world. I could only hear now and
then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly
swelling from the cloisters, and the sound
of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed
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 dist