THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE
A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
by Washington Irving
I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,In time's great period shall return to nought.
I know that all the muse's heavenly lays,With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,That there is nothing lighter than mere praise.
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
THERE are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturallysteal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where wemay indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. Insuch a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters ofWestminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which oneis apt to dignify with the name of reflection; when suddenly aninterruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing atfoot-ball, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, makingthe vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. Isought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeperinto the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergersfor admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal richwith the crumbling sculpture of former ages, which opened upon agloomy passage leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in whichdoomsday book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door onthe left. To this the verger applied a key; it was double locked,and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascendeda dark narrow staircase, and, passing through a second door, enteredthe library.
I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported bymassive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a rowof Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and whichapparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancientpicture of some reverend dignitary of the church in his robes hungover the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were thebooks, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally ofold polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. Inthe centre of the library was a solitary table with two or three bookson it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse.
The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. Itwas buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up fromthe tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shoutsof the school-boys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and thesound of a bell tolling for prayers, echoing soberly along the roofsof the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter andfainter, and at length died away; the bell ceased to toll, and aprofound silence reigned through the dusky hall.
I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound inparchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in avenerable elbow-chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiledby the solemn monastic air, and lifeless quiet of the place, into atrain of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in theirmouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently neverdisturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the library a kindof literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piouslyentombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty oblivion.
How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust asidewith such indifference, cost some aching head! how many weary days!
how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves inthe solitude of cells and cloisters; shut themselves up from theface of man, and the still more blessed face of nature; and devotedthemselves to painful research and intense reflection! And all forwhat? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf- to have the title of theirworks read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy churchman orcasual straggler like myself; and in another age to be lost, even toremembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A meretemporary rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which hasjust tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment-lingering transiently in echo- and then passing away like a thing thatwas not!
While I sat half murmuring, half meditating these unprofitablespeculations with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with theother hand upon the quarto, until I accidentally loosened theclasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two orthree yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep; then a husky hem; andat length began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse andbroken, being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider hadwoven across it; and having probably contracted a cold from longexposure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time,however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceedinglyfluent conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was ratherquaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation, what, in the presentday, would be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I amable, to render it in modern parlance.
