I would rather
visit Rydal Mount than Hughenden; I should experience a greater
exaltation of soul at Haworth than at Strathfieldsaye. I would rather
see the lane where Tennyson wrote "Break, break, break," than Mr.
Gladstone's library at Hawarden. Not that the houses of statesmen and
generals are not interesting; I would take some trouble to visit them
if I were in the neighbourhood of them; but it would be a mental rather
than a spiritual pleasure, and when one was there one would tend to ask
questions rather than contemplate the scene in silent awe. It may be a
sentimental thing to say, but I should hope to visit Brantwood and
Somerby Rectory with my heart full of prayer and my eyes full of tears,
just as I should visit some old and well-loved house that had been the
scene for me of happy days and loving memories.
What I find to regret in these latter days is--I say it with
shame--that there is no house of any living writer which I should visit
with this sense of awe and desire and sacredness. There are writers
whom I honour and admire greatly, whose work I reverence and read, but
there is no author alive a summons to whose presence I should obey with
eager solemnity and devout expectation. That is perhaps my own fault,
or the fault perhaps of my advancing years; but, to put it differently,
there is no author now writing whose book I should order the moment I
saw it announced, and await its arrival with keen anticipation.
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