Forty years later I heard it again, and better sung; but at that time
I needed nothing better. It was sung by four male voices, and rose
into a region of thrilling passion, such as my heart had always dimly
craved and hungered after, but which now first interpreted itself, as
a physical possibility, to my ear.

My brother did not share my inexpressible delight; his taste ran in
a different channel; and the arrangements of the house did not meet
his approbation; particularly this, that either Mrs. B. herself, or
else the governess, was always present when the young ladies joined
our society, which my brother considered particularly vulgar, since
natural propriety and decorum should have whispered to an old lady
that a young gentleman might have "things" to say to her daughters
which he could not possibly intend for the general ear of
eavesdroppers--things tending to the confidential or the sentimental,
which none but a shameless old lady would seek to participate; by that
means compelling a young man to talk as loud as if he were addressing
a mob at Charing Cross, or reading the Riot Act. There were other
out-of-door amusements, amongst which a swing--which I mention for the
sake of illustrating the passive obedience which my brother levied
upon me, either through my conscience, as mastered by his doctrine of
primogeniture, or, as in this case, through my sensibility to shame
under his taunts of cowardice. It was a most ambitious swing, ascending
to a height beyond any that I have since seen in fairs or public
gardens. Horror was at my heart regularly as the swing reached its
most aerial altitude; for the oily, swallow-like fluency of the swoop
downwards threatened always to make me sick, in which it is probable
that I must have relaxed my hold of the ropes, and have been projected,
with fatal violence, to the ground. But, in defiance of all this
miserable panic, I continued to swing whenever he tauntingly invited