



Produced by David Widger









                        TWICE TOLD TALES

                      SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE

                      By Nathaniel Hawthorne


O! I have climbed high, and my reward is small.  Here I stand, with
wearied knees, earth, indeed,  at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far,
far beyond me still.  O that I could soar up into the very  zenith, where
man never breathed, nor eagle ever flew,  and where the ethereal azure
melts away from the eye,  and appears only a deepened shade of
nothingness!  And  yet I shiver at that cold and solitary thought.  What
clouds are gathering in the golden west, with direful  intent against the
brightness and the warmth of this  dimmer afternoon!  They are ponderous
air-ships, black  as death, and freighted with the tempest; and at
intervals  their thunder, the signal-guns of that unearthly squadron,
rolls distant along the deep of heaven.  These nearer  heaps of fleecy
vapor--methinks I could roll and toss  upon them the whole day long!--seem
scattered here  and there, for the repose of tired pilgrims through
the sky.  Perhaps--for who can tell?--beautiful spirits are disporting
themselves there, and will bless my mortal  eye with the brief appearance
of their curly locks of  golden light, and laughing faces, fair and faint
as the  people of a rosy dream.  Or, where the floating mass so
imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament, a slender foot and
fairy limb, resting too heavily upon the frail support, may be thrust
through, and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in
vain.  Yonder again is an airy archipelago, where the sunbeams love to
linger in their journeyings through space.  Every one of those little
clouds has been dipped and steeped in radiance, which the slightest
pressure might disengage in silvery profusion, like water wrung from a
sea-maid's hair.  Bright they are as a young man's visions, and, like
them, would be realized in chillness, obscurity, and tears.  I will look
on them no more.

In three parts of the visible circle, whose centre is this spire, I
discern cultivated fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving
lines of rivulets, little placid lakes, and here and there a rising
ground, that would fain be termed a hill.  On the fourth side is the sea,
stretching away towards a viewless boundary, blue and calm, except where
the passing anger of a shadow flits across its surface, and is gone.
Hitherward, a broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge of
the harbor, formed by its extremity, is a town; and over it am I, a
watchman, all-heeding and unheeded.  O that the multitude of chimneys
could speak, like those of Madrid, and betray, in smoky whispers, the
secrets of all who, since their first foundation, have assembled at the
hearths within!  O that the Limping Devil of Le Sage would perch beside
me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every
chamber, and make me familiar with their inhabitants!  The most desirable
mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering
invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into
their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity, and shade from
their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself.  But none of
these things are possible; and if I would know interior of brick walls,
or the mystery of human bosoms, I can but guess.

Yonder is a fair street, extending north and south.  The stately mansions
are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of
steps descends from every door to the pavement.  Ornamental trees--the
broad-leafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful
but infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the names--grow
thrivingly among brick and stone.  The oblique rays of the sun are
intercepted by these green citizens, and by the houses, so that one side
of the street is a shaded and pleasant walk.  On its whole extent there
is now but a single passenger, advancing