Page:Ethel Churchill 1.pdf/252

246 but the mind frets that only feeds upon its own resources. Swift's existence is one of the intellect: he does not look to the pleasures, to the affections, to the small employments of life; every sentence, however careless, betrays his contempt for them. He needs an active and stirring career—he needs to be taken out of himself—communication and contradiction are to him necessary elements; and, in the dull seclusion of his Irish deanery, he is wholly shut out from them. "It closes round me like a pall:" I cannot tell you the impression these words made upon me; they conjured up so many hours of dulness and of discontent. It must be so mortifying to a man, the consciousness of talent, and the knowledge that he is shut out from the sphere to which its exercise belongs. But here, again, is the old variance between nature and fortune: each seems to delight in marring the work of the other. There was one contrast in Swift with his fellow wits: they grew gayer as the dinner progressed, he did not. At first, his conversation was very lively—a sort of fierce vivacity, like a bird or beast of prey dashing at its