For is it not brought back, “like morn risen on mid-night;” and may he not yet greet the yellow light shining on the evening bank with eyes of youth, of genius, and freedom, as of yore?  No, never!  But what would not these persons give for the unbroken integrity of their early opinions—­for one unshackled, uncontaminated strain—­one Io paean to Liberty—­one burst of indignation against tyrants and sycophants, who subject other countries to slavery by force, and prepare their own for it by servile sophistry, as we see the huge serpent lick over its trembling, helpless victim with its slime and poison, before it devours it!  On every stanza so penned would be written the word RECREANT!  Every taunt, every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and freedom, would recall to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  And what shall we say to him—­the sleep-walker, the dreamer, the sophist, the word-hunter, the craver after sympathy, but still vulnerable to truth, accessible to opinion, because not sordid or mechanical?  The Bourbons being no longer tied about his neck, he may perhaps recover his original liberty of speculating; so that we may apply to him the lines about his own Ancient Mariner—­

  “And from his neck so free
  The Albatross fell off, and sank
  Like lead into the sea.”

This is the reason I can write an article on the Letter-Bell, and other such subjects; I have never given the lie to my own soul.  If I have felt any impression once, I feel it more strongly a second time; and I have no wish to revile and discard my best thoughts.  There is at length a thorough keeping in what I write—­not a line that betrays a principle or disguises a feeling.  If my wealth is small, it all goes to enrich the same heap; and trifles in this way accumulate to a tolerable sum.—­Or if the Letter-Bell does not lead me a dance into the country, it fixes me in the thick of my town recollections, I know not how long ago.  It was a kind of alarm to break off from my work when there happened to be company to dinner or when I was going to the play. That was going to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and had not been more than half a dozen times in my life.  Even the idea that any one else in the house was going, was a sort of reflected enjoyment, and conjured up a lively anticipation of the scene.  I remember a Miss D——­, a maiden lady from Wales (who in her youth was to have been married to an earl,) tantalized me greatly in this way, by talking all day of going to see Mrs. Siddons’ “airs and graces” at night in some favourite part; and when the Letter-Bell announced that the time was approaching, and its last receding sound lingered on the ear, or was lost in silence, how anxious and uneasy I became, lest she and her companion should not be in time to get good places—­lest the curtain should draw up before they arrived—­and