His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly bare of
furniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch which served
for dreaming on both by day and night, and a great press of black oak,
there was very little in the room that could be called furniture.
But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one stood
a skeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported by a string
about its neck. One of its hands, all of fingers, rested on the heavy
pommel of a great sword that stood beside it.
Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls were
utterly bare of adornment; for the few strange things, such as a large
dried bat with wings dispread, the skin of a porcupine, and a stuffed
sea-mouse, could hardly be reckoned as such. But although his fancy
delighted in vagaries like these, he indulged his imagination with far
different fare. His mind had never yet been filled with an absorbing
passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to any wind, whether the
low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bows the great trees
till they strain and creak. He saw everything as through a rose-coloured
glass. When he looked from his window on the street below, not a maiden
passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after her till
she disappeared in the vista. When he walked in the streets, he always
felt as if reading a tale, into which he sought to weave every face of
interest that went by; and every sweet voice swept his soul as with the
wing of a passing angel. He was in fact a poet without words; the more
absorbed and endangered, that the springing-waters were dammed back
into his soul, where, finding no utterance, they grew, and swelled, and
undermined.
He used to lie on his hard couch, and read a tale or a poem,
till the book dropped from his hand; but he dreamed on, he knew not
whether awake or asleep, until the opposite roof grew upon his sense,
and turned golden in the sunrise. Then he arose too; and the impulses of
vigorous youth kept him ever active, either in study or in sport, until
again the close of the day left him free; and the world of night, which
had lain drowned in the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with
all its stars, and dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last
long. Some one form must sooner or later step within the charmed circle,
enter the house of life, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and
worship.