Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

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.