Baudelaire has a few
dainty sentences on the fancies that we are inspired with when we
look through a window into other people's lives; and I think Dickens
has somewhere enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, is
one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, night after
night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup together, make merry,
and retire to rest; and night after night I waited to see the candles
lit, and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully
exchanged, without any abatement of interest. Night after night I
found the scene rivet my attention and keep me awake in bed with all
manner of quaint imaginations. Much of the pleasure of the ARABIAN
NIGHTS hinges upon this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of
lifting other people's roofs, and going about behind the scenes of
life with the Caliph and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a salutary
exercise, besides; it is salutary to get out of ourselves and see
people living together in perfect unconsciousness of our existence,
as they will live when we are gone. If to-morrow the blow falls, and
the worst of our ill fears is realised, the girl will none the less
tell stories to the child on her lap in the cottage at Great
Missenden, nor the good Belgians light their candle, and mix their
salad, and go orderly to bed.
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