Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1868-12-11
The Lonely House.

IT is half past ten at night. You enter
the front door, and the hall and house
are dark. You tumble for the matches.
Crash! goes some glass thing from the
hat stand, against which you have knock
ed. 1t is borrowed flower-vase, put
there that you might not forget to take it
home. Alas!
The gas is lit. You survey the par
Tor, waste of newspapers, library in
state of chronic earthquake, the tables
like sections of museum, the floor
stocked and stacked with mis- elanies,
through which run narrow channels for
your feet. All! what would your wife
say, if she were here? But she is not
here, and you are! You are the lord
of disorder, as she is the very queen Of
neatness. You laugh inwardly, and re-
joi,e with barbaric love of confusion.
Put off your coat. Now trim the
fire. Here are your books. Here is
your pen. You soon fall away from the
printed page. Pictures rise before you.
One after another friends pass before you
not in society dress, but in their meta
physical nakedness. You now say what
elsewhere you only thought, and feel
what you dare not think. Your silent
room is a dissecting table. without blood
or sounds. 1t is garden where roses
have no thorns. 1t is torture chamber
where secrets are wrung out of reluctant
lips. 1t is paradise where all sing and
none weepl By turns it is everything
joyous and everything sad or stern; and,
and above all things, it is free! There are
no walled streets here, no creeds. no Gus
toms, no society, no laws, no officers. -
1t is a wide realm which you rule, filling
or emptyiug it, to suit your moods, with
gladness or sadness, with fictions or very
skeletons of Anatomical truths. Time
itself seems lost; for when the mantel-
clock, that an hour ago sounded twelve,
makes one more despairing effort, and
strikes one, the single, solitary note so
chimes with your soitariness that you
hear and heed it, and wonder how a
seeming ten minutes has really been an
hour!
This is but single bead off from the
long string of your experiences. There
is the exploration of pleasure, by which
you 90 down to the depths, to see if all
things are safe from burglars-a whole
some exercise and bracing; there is the
gamut of sounds, which one must learn
in solitary house. Every window has
its own rattle. Every door has its own
peculiar creak or slam. At night, too,
sounds come through your very walls
from the next houses. The feet that 90
stamp, stamp up the stairs are not in
your house, but in the next. The voice
that calls yon is not at your door, but in
the contiguous room of your neighbours
house. At length you discriminate with
unerring truth. But, while learning, you
lave rare experiences, and electric starts.
and tests of courage and GOODNESS. You
become mouse-proof, too. AT first, when
a mouse rustles about in the newspaper
which you left on the floor, you waSe
with vengefuI feeling against all bur-
glars! But, after while, you can tell
the pit-a pat of mouse from rat, aud of
rat from cat, and of all from the muffled
tread of a thief or robber! Then, when
one sleeps after high excitement, and is
suddenly walked by hearing some one
call out his name-call as plainly as ey-
er his mother did-he can enjoy the
process of getting calm again, aud salts
flying himself bat it was only imagination
Sweet is tn dream of solitude, but
sorrowful the waking. --Beeeker.