This new keenness of perception, of taste and touch, of smell and sound, belongs also, in the splendid rally which the body makes toward health, to the intellectual and imaginative sphere of activities. Something of the lost gifts of the fairy-land of childhood returns to us in fresh aptitude for strange, sweet castle-building, as we lie open-eyed, or in power to see, as the child sees, what we will when the eyes are closed,--
Pictures of love and hate, Grim battles where no death is. Tournaments, Tall castles fair and garden terraces, Where the stiff peacock mocks the sunset light, And man and maiden whisper tenderly A shadowy love where no heart ever breaks,-- Love whose to-morrow shall be as to-day.
With the increase of intellectual clearness, within a certain range, come, as with the brightened senses, certain drawbacks, arising out of the fastidiousness which belongs to the changing man just at this time. Let him, therefore, be careful what novels he chooses, for of all times this is the one for fiction, when we are away from the contradictions of the fierce outer world, and are in an atmosphere all sun and flowers, and pleasant with generous service and thankful joy. Be careful what Scheherezade you invite to your couch. By an awful rule of this world's life, in all its phases, the sharper the zest of enjoyment, the keener the possible disgusts may be. I recommend Dumas's books at this crisis, but they should be read with acceptance; as stories, their value lying largely in this, that no matter who is murdered or what horror occurs, you somehow feel no more particular call upon your compassion than is made when you read afresh the terrible catastrophes of Jack the Giant-Killer.
A delightful master of style, Robert Louis Stevenson, in a recent enumeration of the books which have influenced him in life, mentions, as among the most charming of characterizations, the older Artagnan of the Vicomte de Bragelonne. I feel sure that on the sick-bed, of which he does not hesitate to speak, he must have learned, as I did, to appreciate this charming book. I made acquaintance then, also, with what seems to me, however, the most artistic of Dumas's works, and one so little known that to name it is a benefit, or may be, the Chevalier d'Harmenthal.