Day 3 Commonplace: Mysteries of Udolpho

 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.

Then can I drown an eye unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,

And moan th‘ expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

WIKI

Our travelers are once again on the road, traversing on winding mountain roads with very picturesque views. When they left it was before sunrise, and Radcliffe describes the early morning is the time when one (an invalid like M. St Aubert) 

'can inhale the first pure breath of morning, which above all things is refreshing...these regions it was particularly so, where an abundance of wild flowers and aromatic herbs breathe forth their essence on the air'.

As the dawn emerges on the scenery, the reader is viewing it just as Emily is watching the sun rise. 

'the sullen grey of the eastern clouds began to blush, then to redden, and then to glow with a thousand colours, till the golden light darted over all the air'

In this next section, Valancourt and M. St. Aubert formed an acquaintance and when they came to a fork in the road, he was sorry to see Valancourt depart from them. As they continue on their travels, the scenery is again so vivid, and dream like.

'The rivulet, which had hitherto accompanied them, now expanded into a river; and, flowing deeply and silently along, reflected, as in a mirror, the blackness of the impending shades.'

This dark scene and our travelers facing the darkness of the night, come across Valancort who has been shot, and prepare to take him to the next town. This part is I found humorous in describing the surgeon of the town.

'if a surgeon her could be called, who prescribed for horses as well as for men, and shaved faces at least as dexterously as he set bones.'

 With Valancort having a sleepless and feverish night, they decide to stay in the town, until Valancort is well enough to travel. At one point they 'stopped when the scenery was grand' to take walks and breath it all of nature in. The reader is given tender moment scenes between Valancort and Emily as they stroll along together reciting poetry, and M. St. Aubert caught Valancort 'fixing his eyes pensively on her countenance'.

Coming upon a valley, several times before some of the scenery touched M. St. Aubert, and Valancourt notices and remarks, 

"These scenes soften the heart, like the notes of sweet music, and inspire that delicious melancholy which no person, who had felt it once, would resign for the gayest pleasures. They waken our best and purest feelings, disposing us to benevolence, pity and friendship. Those whom I love--I always seem to love more in such an hour as this'

This is why I chose Shakespeare's Sonnet 30, there is always that scenery, or lyrics from a song, the smell of a favorite meal, or the scent of flowers that remind me of my loved ones. Nature has a way of connecting not only to ourselves, but to the ones we love.

And I left off, where our travelers come upon a covenant where they stop to spend the night.