"It was better though, at night-fall,
When, through the empty town,
I and my shadow together
Went silent up and down.
"With echoing, echoing footstep,
Over the bridge I walk;
The moon breaks out of the waters,
And looks as if she would talk.
"I stood still before thy dwelling,
Like a tree that prays for rain;
I stood gazing up at thy window--
My heart was in such pain.
"And thou lookedst through thy curtains--
I saw thy shining hand;
And thou sawest me, in the moonlight,
Still as a statue stand."
"Excuse me," said Mrs. Cathcart, with a smile, "but I don't think such
sentimental songs good for anybody. They can't be _healthy_--I
believe that is the word they use now-a-days."
"I don't say they are," returned the doctor; "but many a pain is
relieved by finding its expression. I wish he had never written worse."
"That is not why I like them," said the curate. "They seem to me to hold
the same place in literature that our dreams do in life. If so much of
our life is actually spent in dreaming, there must be some place in our
literature for what corresponds to dreaming. Even in this region, we
cannot step beyond the boundaries of our nature. I delight in reading
Lord Bacon now; but one of Jean Paul's dreams will often give me more
delight than one of Bacon's best paragraphs.
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