Glibbans and her daughter Becky, with Miss
Nanny Eydent, together with other friends of the minister's family,
dined at the manse, and the conversation being chiefly about the
concerns of the family, the letters were produced and read.
LETTER XII
Andrew Pringle, Esq., to the Rev. Charles Snodgrass--WINDSOR,
CASTLE-INN.
My Dear Friend--I have all my life been strangely susceptible of
pleasing impressions from public spectacles where great crowds are
assembled. This, perhaps, you will say, is but another way of
confessing, that, like the common vulgar, I am fond of sights and
shows. It may be so, but it is not from the pageants that I derive
my enjoyment. A multitude, in fact, is to me as it were a strain of
music, which, with an irresistible and magical influence, calls up
from the unknown abyss of the feelings new combinations of fancy,
which, though vague and obscure, as those nebulae of light that
astronomers have supposed to be the rudiments of unformed stars,
afterwards become distinct and brilliant acquisitions. In a crowd,
I am like the somnambulist in the highest degree of the luminous
crisis, when it is said a new world is unfolded to his
contemplation, wherein all things have an intimate affinity with the
state of man, and yet bear no resemblance to the objects that
address themselves to his corporeal faculties.
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