The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the
library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of
the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no
unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr.
Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he
was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very
often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the
twilight, when his day's work was done.
These twilight walks were the happy holidays of his life, and a part of
his liberal education. He told his wife everything, every literary
scheme, every fancy, every shadowy outline of future work, every new
discovery in the boundless realms of Bookland. His enthusiasm; his
hero-worship; his setting-up of one favourite and knocking-down of
another; his unchristian pleasure in that awful slating of poor Jones in
this week's _Saturday_, or the flaying alive of Robinson in the _Bond
Street Backbiter_;--in a word, his "shop" never became wearisome to
Charlotte. She listened always with a like rapture and sympathy; she
worshipped his favourites of Bookland; she welcomed his friends and
fellow-workers with unvarying sweetness she devised and superintended the
fitting-up of a smoking-room that was perfectly paradisaical, a glimpse
of the Alhambra in miniature; and that obnoxious dish, the cold shoulder,
was never served in Mr.
Pages:
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562