LETTERS FROM A RECLUSE.
NO. I.
You, who are a Spectator on one of the great stages of the world, can have no idea how events strike the mind of a recluse like myself, who lives in a solitude, and sees the world only through the windows of newspapers. Not a breath of opinion reaches the stillness in which I live : I am removed far beyond the reach of even the distant hum of society, or as the modern orthography I believe orders it, the huna bug. But new modes of spelling and other refinements, are veiy distantly understood by one who receives all his ideas by post, or SAUNDERS and OTLEY'S book-boxes. By the by, is the saying " As stupid as a post," derived from my condition ? does it refer to the state of a man who receives his intellectual supplies by the mail only ? A candid French writer says, "If I may judge from myself, man is a stupid animal ;" and if I may judge from my own condition of under- standing, the suggested interpretation of the above proverb is too true a one. Depend upon it, a single mind is as incapable of digesting knowledge, as a single millstone is incapable of grinding corn. Fric- tion is a law of nature.
Why is it that a man cannot walk straight and steady on a airzy height ?—Because, answer the philosophers, he wants objects of com- parison by which he may regulate his perpendicular ; for though man '- walks every day, yet being, as the Frenchman observes, a stupid ani- mal, he never acquires the art of performing the exercise without such ' outward aids. Goats have here the advantage ; but I am not a goat, my friend, and my understanding totters in its narrow and solitary path, for want of immediate objects assuring correctness. The news- papers spread the world in a map under my eye ; but what a chart is to an untravelled man, they are to me,—I see this topic and that topic, but have no idea of their true characters, proportions, and rela- tive importance. For example, I have this week read of the peace be- tween Russia and Turkey, the debut of Miss KEMBLE, and the impe- rial of Lord STUART de ROTHESAY ; and I can scarcely judge which matter is considered as of greatest moment to society. It seems to me as if your news-writers wrote on music-paper, with five scores of emphasis under every line. Or, to speak graphically, there is no per- spective in your prints ; which are to my eye as Chinese landscape:. You, who see the actual movements of the world, doubtless know from experience how to interpret the representations of them ; but to judge of my perplexities, you must consider what I am, and that you cannot understand without knowing where I am, and how I live. First, banish every idea of population, cultivation, and all other ations, except desolation, which you may make the ground of my pic- ture. Conceive a wide track of poor scrubby land; frequent Inc rasses ; and neglected enclosures of unproductive soil : the sea in the far foreground ; a moor girding in with its bleak barrenness the lath- zon in the rear, and by its grim exposure forbidding fancy itself to figure a beauty in the sad homestead. Our country is indeed of the frankest ugliness—it has no disguises, and in this respect belies the beauty of truth, Were there any hollows or dells in it, where sweet- ness and fertility might be conceived, I should be better content with it; but it has no such pleasant deceits. From the writings of some of your London gentlemen, I should conjecture you would be delighted with the idea of "so retired a spot,"—all nature, in the rude romantic style, fit for Dandy Dinmont, and adventures with robbers : but such pros- pects, believe me, are better for paper than inhabitation ; and I cart assure you that the grim features of nature, the barrenness, the rude; ness, the manlessness of the scene, bruises my imagination—paint-ail impressive, they weighry mind with a heavy deformity. It feels material oppression. Vithin a dozert Mika Thera islicit a person wit whom I can converse ; and for days together I speak only to my hous. keeper, and a helper who tends any horse, and what is termed th garden. Through this gaunt scene, cut a couple of square apertures insert the frames of the Chronicle and the Standard; and you ha my position, and means of seeing the world. I must not, however, leave out my habitation. It is a house of order once common in England. Of old red brick, one story high. parlours on a floor, with a porch between them, admitting into 01 larger room. A kitchen behind, and a staircase closed by a door as- cending from .parlour major to the sleeping-rooms, corresponding in size with the sub-sitting apartments. The smaller of these chambers is ms study ; the larger, my eating-room. The windows gaze upon a shabby plat bounded by a road which would shine in the character of a rut : beyond it is a slope of poor, enclosed, but neglected land, which stretches down for about a mile, to a slip of moor, descending by a step ef red cliff to the sea-shore, of large shingle, rude rock, and a roaring surf. Imagine the interest which the living, the moving, the animated
nuat have for a being in so dreary a place ! But my appetite is baulked by imperfect digestion. I cannot persuade myself that I understand half or a quarter that I read—Pin n you assist Inc. Be the moon slice, dear friend, between me and the visible world. Be tolerant of my inquisitive ignorance.
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