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 JAMES K.MOFFITT 
 
 PAULINE FORE MOFFITT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 GENERAL LIBRARY, BERKELEY 
 
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Imaginary 'Portrait 
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Imaginary ''Portrait 
 By Walter Tater 
 
Copies printed. 
 This is No. /O S 
 
AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT 
 BY WALTER PATER iSSSWSa 
 
rn HE CHILD IN 
 THE HOVSE 
 
AS Florian Deleal walked, one hot 
 afternoon, he overtook by the way- 
 fide a poor aged man, and, as he feemed 
 weary with the road, helped him on with 
 the burden which he carried, a certain 
 diftance. And as the man told his ftory, 
 it chanced that he named the place 3 a 
 little place in the neighbourhood of a 
 great city, where Florian had palled his 
 earliefl years, but which he had never 
 fmce feen, and, the ftory told, went for- 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 ward on his journey comforted. And 
 that night, like a reward for his pity, a 
 dream of that place came to Flonan^ a 
 dream which did for him the office of the 
 finer fort of memory, bringing its objed 
 to mind with great clearnefs, yet, as 
 fometimes happens in dreams, raifed a 
 little above itfelf, and above ordinary 
 retrofpedt. The true afped; of the place, 
 efpecially of the houfe there in which he 
 had lived as a child, the fafhion of its 
 doors, its hearths, its windows, the very 
 fcent upon the air of it, was with him in 
 fleep for a feafon ; only with tints more 
 mufically blent on wall and floor, and 
 fome finer light and fhadow running in 
 
 6 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 and out along its curves and angles, and 
 with all its little carvings daintier. He 
 awoke with a figh at the thought of al- 
 rnoft thirty years which lay between him 
 and that place, yet with a flutter of 
 pleafure ftill within him at the fair light, 
 as if it were a fmile, upon it. And it 
 happened that this accident of his dream 
 was juft the thing needed for the begin- 
 ning of a certain defign he then had in 
 view, the noting, namely, of fome things 
 in the ftory of his fpirit in that procefs 
 of brain-building by which we are, each 
 one of us, what we are. With the image 
 of the place fo clear and favourable upon 
 him, he fell to thinking of himfelf there- 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 in, and how his thoughts had grown up 
 to him. In that half-fpiritualifed houfe 
 he could watch the better, over again, 
 the gradual expanfion of the foul which 
 had come to be, there of which indeed, 
 through the law which makes the ma- 
 terial objedis about them fo large an 
 element in children's lives, it had adlu- 
 ally become a part; inward and outward 
 being woven through and through each 
 other into one inextricable texture 
 half, tint and trace and accident of 
 homely colour and form > from the wood 
 and the bricks ; half, mere foul-fluff, 
 floated thither from who knows how far. 
 In the houfe and garden of his dream 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 he faw a child moving, and could divide 
 the main ftreams, at leaft, of the winds 
 that had played on him, and ftudy fo the 
 firft frage in that mental journey. 
 
 The old houfe, as when Flortan talked 
 of it afterwards he always called it, (as 
 all children do, who can recoiled a 
 change of home, foon enough but not too 
 foon to mark a period in their lives) 
 really was an old houfe; and an element 
 of French defcent in its inmates de- 
 fcentfrom Watteau the old court-painter, 
 one of whofe gallant pieces ftill hung in 
 one of the rooms might explain, toge- 
 ther with fome other things, a noticeable 
 trimnefs and comely whitenefs about 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 everything there the curtains, the 
 couches, the paint on the walls with 
 which the light and fliadow played fo 
 delicately, might explain alfo the tole- 
 rance of the great poplar in the garden, 
 a tree moft often defpifed by Englifli 
 people, but which French people love, 
 having obferved a certain frefh way its 
 leaves have of dealing with the wind, 
 making it found in never fo flight a 
 (lining of the air, like running water. 
 
 The old-fafliion-ed, low wainfcoting 
 went round the rooms and up the ftair- 
 cafe with carved balufters and fhadowy 
 angles, landing half-way up at a broad 
 window, with a fwallow's neft below the 
 
 10 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 fill, and the bloflbm of an old pear-tree 
 fhowing acrofs it in late April, againft 
 the blue, below which the perfumed juice 
 of fallen fruit in autumn was fo frefh. 
 At the next turning came the clofet 
 which held on its deep {helves the beft 
 china. Little angel faces, and reedy 
 flutings ftood out round the fireplace of 
 the children's room. And on the top 
 of the houfe, above the large attic, where 
 the white mice ran in the twilight 
 an infinite, unexplored wonderland of 
 childifh treafures, glafs beads, empty 
 fcent-bottles ftill fweet, thrum of co- 
 loured filks, among its lumber a flat 
 fpace of roof, railed round, gave a view 
 
 ii 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 of the neighbouring fteeples; for the 
 houfe, as I faid, ftood near a great city 9 
 which fent up heavenwards^ over the 
 twitting weather-vanes, not feldom, its 
 beds of rolling cloud and fmoke, touched 
 with ftorm or funfhine. But the child 
 of whom I am writing did not hate the 
 fog becaufe of the crimfon lights which 
 fell from it fometimes upon the chim- 
 neys, and the whites which gleamed 
 through its openings, on fummer morn- 
 ings, on turret or pavement. For it is 
 falfe to fuppofe that a child's fenfe of 
 beauty is dependent on any choicenefs^ 
 or fpecial finenefs, in the objefts which 
 prefent themfelves to it, though this in- 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 deed comes to be the rule with moft of 
 us in later life earlier, in fome degree, 
 we fee inwardly ; and the child finds for 
 itfelf, and with unftinted delight, a dif- 
 ference for the fenfe, in thofe whites 
 and reds through the fmoke on very 
 homely buildings, and in the gold of the 
 dandelions at the road-fide, juft beyond 
 the houfes, where not a handful of earth 
 is virgin and untouched, in the lack of 
 better miniftries to its defire of beauty.. 
 This houfe, then, flood not far beyond 
 the gloom and rumours of the town, 
 among high garden-walls, bright all 
 fummer-time with Golden-rod, and 
 brown-and-golden Wall-flower, Flos- 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 parietis, as the children's Latin-reading 
 father taught them to call it, while he 
 was with them. Tracing back the 
 threads of his complex fpiritual habit, 
 as he was ufed in after years to do, 
 Florian found that he owed to the place 
 many tones of fentiment afterwards 
 cuftomary with him, certain inward 
 lights under which things moft naturally 
 prefented themfelves to him. The 
 coming and going of travellers to the 
 town along the way, the fhadow of the 
 ftreets, the fudden breadth of the neigh- 
 bouring gardens, the fingular brightnefs 
 of bright weather there, its fingular 
 darknefles which linked themfelves in 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 his mind to certain engraved illuftra- 
 tions in the old big Bible at home, the 
 coolnefs of the dark, cavernous fliops 
 round the great church, with its giddy 
 winding ftair up to the pigeons and the 
 bells a citadel of peace in the heart of 
 the trouble all this adted on his child- 
 ifh fancy, fo that ever afterwards the 
 like afpedts and incidents never failed 
 to throw him into a well-recognifed 
 imaginative mood, feeming actually to 
 have become a part of the texture of his 
 mind. Alfo, Florian could trace home 
 to this point a pervading preference in 
 himfelf for a kind of comelinefs and 
 dignity, an urbanity literally, in modes 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 of life, which he connected with the 
 pale people of towns, and which made 
 him fufceptible to a kind of exquifite 
 fatisfadion in the trimnefs and well- 
 confidered grace of certain things and 
 perfons he afterwards met with, here 
 and there, in his way through the world. 
 So the child of whom I am writing 
 lived on there quietly ; things without 
 thus miniftering to him, as he fat daily 
 at the window with the birdcage hanging 
 below it, and his mother taught him to 
 read, wondering at the eafe with which 
 he learned, and at the quicknefs of his 
 memory. The perfume of the little 
 flowers of the lime-tree fell through the 
 
 16 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 air upon them, like rain; while time 
 feemed to move ever more flowly to the 
 murmur of the bees in it, till it almoft 
 flood frill on June afternoons. How 
 infignificant, at the moment, feem the 
 influences of the fenfible things which 
 are tofled and fall and lie about us, fo, 
 or fo, in the environment of early child- 
 hood. How indelibly, as we afterwards 
 difcover, they affect us ; with what ca- 
 pricious attractions and affiliations 
 they figure themfelves on the white paper, 
 the fmooth wax of our ingenuous fouls, 
 as ' with lead in the rock for ever, ' 
 giving form and feature, and as it were 
 affigned houfe-room in our memory, to 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 early experiences of feeling and thought, 
 which abide with us ever afterwards, 
 thus, and not otherwife. The realities 
 and paffions, the rumours of the greater 
 world without, fteal in upon us, each 
 by its own fpecial little paffage-way, 
 through the wall of cuftom about us ; 
 and never afterwards quite detach them- 
 felves from this or that accident, or 
 trick, in the mode of their firft entrance 
 to us. Our fufceptibilities, the difcovery 
 of our powers, manifold experiences 
 our various experiences of the coming 
 and going of bodily pain, for inftance 
 belong to this or the other well-remem- 
 bered place in the material habitation 
 
 18 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 that little white room with the window 
 acrofs which the heavy bloflbms could 
 beat fo peevifhly in the wind, with juft 
 that particular catch or throb, fuch a 
 fenfe of teafing in it, on gufty mornings : 
 and the early habitation thus gradually 
 becomes a fort of material fhrine or 
 fanduary of fentiment ; a fyftem of vi- 
 fible fymbolifm interweaves itfelf through 
 all our thoughts and paffions ; and, irre- 
 liftibly, little fhapes, voices, accidents 
 the angle at which the fun in the morn- 
 ing fell on the pillow become parts of 
 the great chain wherewith we are bound. 
 Thus far, for Florian, what all this 
 had determined was a peculiarly ftrong 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 fenfe of home fo forcible a motive with 
 all of us prompting to us our cuftomary 
 love of the earth, and the larger part 
 of our fear of death, that revulfion we 
 have from it, as from fomething ftrange, 
 untried, unfriendly- though life-long 
 imprifonment, they tell you, and final 
 banifhment from home is a thing bit- 
 terer ftill - the looking forward to but 
 a fhort fpace, a mere childifli 'gouter' 
 and deflert of it, before the end, being 
 fo great a refource of effort to pilgrims 
 and wayfarers, and the foldier in diftant 
 quarters, and lending, in lack of that, 
 fome power of folace to the thought of 
 fleep in the home churchyard, at leaft 
 
 10 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 dead cheek by dead cheek, and with the 
 rain foaking in upon one from above. 
 
 So powerful is this inftind, and yet 
 accidents like thofe I have been fpeak- 
 ing of fo mechanically determine it its 
 effence being indeed the early familiar., 
 as conftituting our ideal, or typical con- 
 ception, of reft and fecurity. Out of fo 
 many poffible conditions, juft this for 
 you, and that for me, brings ever the 
 unmiflakable realifation of the delight- 
 ful chez,foi^ this for the Englifhman, 
 for me and you, with the clofely-drawn 
 white curtain and the ihaded lamp- 
 that, quite other, for the wandering A- 
 rab, who folds his tent every morning, 
 
 zi 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 and makes his (leaping place among 
 haunted ruins, or in old tombs. 
 
 With Florian y then, the fenfe of home 
 became fingularly intenfe, his good for- 
 tune being that the fpecial character of 
 his home was in itfelf fo effentially 
 home-like. As, after many wanderings, 
 I have come to fancy that fome parts of 
 Surrey and Kent are, for Englishmen, 
 the true landfcape, true home-counties, 
 by right, partly, of a certain earthy 
 warmth in the yellow of the fand below 
 their gorfe-bufhes, and of a certain grey- 
 blue mift after rain, in the hollows of 
 the hills there, welcome to fatigued 
 eyes, and never feen farther fouth ; fo, 
 

 IN THE HOVSE 
 
 I think that the fort of houfe 1 have de- 
 fcribed, with precifely thofe proportions 
 of red-brick and green, and with a juft 
 perceptible monotony in the fubdued 
 order of it, for its diftinguifhing note, is, 
 for Englifhmen at leaft, typically home- 
 like. And fo for 'Plorlan that general 
 human inftindt was reinforced by this 
 fpecial home-likenefs in the place his 
 wandering foul had happened to light 
 on, as, in the fecond degree, its body 
 and earthly tabernacle; the fenfe of 
 harmony between his foul and its phy- 
 fical environment became, for a time at 
 leaft, like perfectly played mufic, and 
 the life led there fmgularly tranquil and 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 filled with a curious fenfe of felf-pos- 
 feffion. The love of fecurity, of an 
 habitually undifputed ftanding-ground 
 or fleeping-place, came to count for 
 much in the generation and corre&ing 
 of his thoughts, and afterwards as a 
 falutary principle of reftraint in all his 
 wanderings of fpirit. The wiftful year- 
 ning towards home, in abfence from it, 
 as the fhadows of evening deepened, 
 and he followed in thought what was 
 doing there from hour to hour, inter- 
 preted to him much of a yearning and 
 regret he experienced afterwards, to- 
 wards he knew not what, out of ftrange 
 ways of feeling and thought in which, 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 from time to time, his fpirit found itfelf 
 alone ; and in the tears ftied in fuch ab- 
 fences there feemed always to be fome 
 foul-fubduing foretafte of what his laft 
 tears might be. 
 
 And the fenfe of fecurity could hardly 
 have been deeper, the quiet of the child's 
 foul being one with the quiet of its home, 
 a place 'inclofed' and 'fealed.' But 
 upon this aflured place, upon the child's 
 affured foul, which refembled it, there 
 came floating in from the larger world 
 without, as at windows left ajar un- 
 knowingly, or over the high garden 
 walls, two ftreams of impreffions, the 
 fentiments of beauty and pain recog- 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 nitions of the vifible, tangible, audible 
 lovelinefs of things, as a very real and 
 fomewhat tyrannous element in them 
 and of the forrow of the world, of grown 
 people and children and animals, as a 
 thing not to be put by in them. From 
 this point he could trace two predomi- 
 nant procefles of mental change in him 
 the growth of an almoft difeafed fen- 
 fibility to the fpectacle of fuffering, and, 
 parallel with this, the rapid growth of a 
 certain capacity of fafcination by bright 
 colour and choice form the fweet cur- 
 vings, for inftance, of the lips of thofe 
 who feemed to him comely perfons, mo- 
 dulated in fuch delicate unifon to the 
 
 16 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 things they faid or fang, marking early 
 the activity in him of a more than cus- 
 tomary fenfuoufnefs ; the 'luft of the 
 eye, 5 as the Preacher fays, which might 
 lead him, one day, how far ! Could he 
 have forefeen the wearinefs of the way! 
 In mufic fometimes the two forts of im- 
 preflions came together, and he would 
 weep, to the furprife of older people. 
 Tears of joy, too, the child knew, alfo 
 to older people's furprife ; real tears, 
 once, of relief from long-ftrung, childifh 
 expectation, when he found returned at 
 evening, with new rofes in her cheeks, 
 the little fifter who had been to a place 
 where there was a wood^ and brought 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 back for him a treafure of fallen acorns, 
 and black crow's feathers, and his peace 
 at finding her again near him mingled 
 all night with fome intimate fenfe of the 
 diftant for eft, the rumour of its breezes, 
 with the glofly blackbirds aflant and the 
 branches lifted in them, and of the per- 
 fect nicety of the little cups that fell. 
 So thofe two elementary apprehenfions 
 of the tendernefs and of the colour in 
 things grew apace in him, and were feen 
 by him afterwards to fend their roots 
 back into the beginnings of life. 
 
 Let me note firft fome of the occa- 
 fions of his recognition of the element 
 of pain in things incidents, now and 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 again, which feemed fuddenly to awake 
 in him the whole force of that fentiment 
 which Goethe has called the Welt- 
 fchmerz, and in which the concentrated 
 forrow of the world feemed fuddenly to 
 lie heavy upon him. A book lay in an 
 old book-cafe, of which he cared to re- 
 member one picture a woman fitting, 
 with hands bound behind her, the drefs, 
 the cap, the hair, folded with a fimplicity 
 which touched him ftrangely, as if not 
 by her own hands, but with fome am- 
 biguous care at the hands of others 
 Queen Marie Antoinette, on her way to 
 execution we all remember David's 
 drawing, meant merely to make her ri- 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 diculous. The face that had been fo 
 high had learned to be mute and refift- 
 lefs; but out of its very refiftleffiiefs^ 
 feemed now to call on men to have pity, 
 and forbear and he took note of that, 
 as he clofed the book, as a thing to look 
 at again, if he fhould at any time find 
 himfelf tempted to be cruel. Again, he 
 would never quite forget the appeal in 
 the fmall fitter's face, in the garden un- 
 der the lilacs, terrified at a fpider lighted 
 on her fleeve. He could trace back to 
 the look then noted a certain mercy he 
 conceived always for people in fear, even 
 of little things, which feemed to make 
 him, though but for a moment, capable 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 of almoft any facrifice of himfelf. Im- 
 preffible, fufceptible perfons, indeed, who 
 had had their forrows, lived about him ; 
 and this fenfibility was due in part to 
 the tacit influence of their prefence, en- 
 forcing upon him habitually the fadt that 
 there are thofe who pafs their days a as 
 a matter of courfe, in a fort of 'going 
 quietly/ Moil poignantly of all he 
 could recall, in unfading minuteft cir- 
 cumftance, the cry on the ftair, founding 
 bitterly through the houfe, and ftruck 
 into his foul for ever, of an aged woman, 
 his father's fitter, come now to announce 
 his death in diftant India; how it 
 feemed to make the aged woman like 
 
 3 1 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 a child again and, he knew not why, 
 but this fancy was full of pity to him. 
 There were the little forrows of the 
 dumb animals too of the white angora, 
 with a dark tail like an ermine's, and a 
 face like a flower, who fell into a lin- 
 gering ficknefs, and became quite deli- 
 cately human in its valetudinarianifm, 
 and came to have a hundred different 
 expreflions of voice how it grew worfe 
 and worfe, till it began to feel the light 
 too much for it,, and at laft, after one 
 wild morning of pain, the little foul 
 flickered away from the body, quite worn 
 to death already, and now but feebly 
 retaining it. 
 
 I* 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 So he wanted another pet; and as 
 there were ftarlings about the place, 
 which could be taught to fpeak, one of 
 them was caught, and he meant to treat 
 it kindly ; but in the night its young 
 ones could be heard crying after it, and 
 the refponfive cry of the mother-bird 
 towards them ; and at laft, with the firft 
 light, though not till after fome debate 
 with himfelf, he went down and opened 
 the cage, and faw a fharp bound of the 
 prifoner up to her neftlings ; and there- 
 with came the fenfe of remorfe, that 
 he too was become an accomplice in 
 moving, to the limit of his fmall power, 
 the fprings and handles of that great 
 
 33 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 machine in things, conftrufted fo ingeni- 
 oufly to play pain-fugues on the delicate 
 nerve-work of living creatures. 
 
 I have remarked how, in the procefs 
 of our brain-building, as the houfe of 
 thought in which we live gets itfelf 
 together like fome airy bird's neft of 
 floating thiftle-down and chance ftraws, 
 compad at laft, little accidents have 
 their confequence; and thus it happened 
 that, as he walked one evening, a garden 
 gate, ufually clofed, flood open; and 
 lo! within, a great red hawthorn, in full 
 flower, emboffing heavily the bleached 
 and twitted trunk and branches, fo aged 
 that there were but few green leaves 
 
 34- 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 thereon a plumage of tender, crimfon 
 fire out of the heart of the dry wood. 
 The perfume of the tree had now and 
 again reached him, in the currents of 
 the wind, over the wall, and he had 
 wondered what might be behind it, and 
 was now allowed to fill his arms with 
 the flowers flowers enough for all the 
 old blue-china pots along the chimney- 
 piece, making fete in the children's 
 room. Was it fome periodic moment 
 in the expanfion of foul within him, or 
 mere trick of heat in the heavily-laden 
 fumrner air? But the beauty of the 
 thing ftruck home to him feverifhly, and 
 in dreams, all night, he loitered along 
 
 3? 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 a magic roadway of crimfon flowers, 
 which feemed to open ruddily in thick, 
 frefli mafles about his feet, and fill foftly 
 all the little hollows in the banks on 
 either fide. Always afterwards, fum- 
 mer by fummer, as the flowers came on, 
 the bloffom of the red hawthorn ftill 
 feemed to him abfolutely the reddeft of 
 all things ; and the goodly crimfon, ftill 
 alive in the works of old Venetian mas- 
 ters, or old Flemifh tapeftries, called 
 out always from afar, the recolledion 
 of the flame in thofe perifhing little pe- 
 tals, as it pulfed gradually out of them, 
 kept long in the drawers of an old cabi- 
 net. Alfo, then, for the firft time, he 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 feemed to experience a paffionatenefs in 
 his relation to fair outward objeds, an 
 inexplicable excitement in their prefence, 
 which disturbed him, and from which he 
 half longed to be free. A touch of re- 
 gret or defire mingled all night with the 
 remembered prefence of the red flowers, 
 and their perfume in the darknefs about 
 him; and the longing for fome undi- 
 vined ? entire pofTeflion of them was the 
 beginning of a revelation to him, grow- 
 ing ever clearer, with the coming of the 
 gracious fummer guife of fields, and 
 trees, and perfons in each fucceeding 
 year, of a certain, at times feemingly 
 exclufive, predominance in his interefts, 
 
 37 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 of beautiful phyfical things, a kind of 
 tyranny of the fenfes over him. 
 
 In later years he came upon philofo- 
 phies which occupied him much in the 
 eftimate of the proportion of the fen- 
 fuous and the ideal elements in human 
 knowledge, the relative parts they bear 
 in it ; and in his intellectual fcheme, 
 was led to affign very little to the ab- 
 ftradt thought, and much to its fenfible 
 vehicle or occafion. Such metaphyfical 
 fpeculation did but reinforce what was 
 inftindHve in his way of receiving the 
 world, and for him, everywhere, that 
 fenfible vehicle or occafion became, 
 perhaps only too furely, the neceffary 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 concomitant of any perception of things, 
 real enough to be of any weight or rec- 
 koning, in his houfe of thought. There 
 were times 'when he could think of the 
 neceffity he was under of aflbciating all 
 thoughts to touch and fight, as a fym- 
 pathetic link between himfelf andadtual, 
 feeling, living objects; a proteft in fa- 
 vour of real men and women againfb 
 mere grey, unreal abftradions ; and he 
 remembered gratefully howtheChriftian 
 religion, hardly lefs than the religion of 
 the ancient Greeks, tranflating fo much 
 of its fpiritual verity into things that 
 may be feen, condefcends in part to 
 fan&ion this infirmity, if fo it be, of our 
 
 39 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 human exiftence, wherein the world of 
 fenfe is fo much with us, and welcomed 
 this thought as a kind of keeper and 
 fentinel over his foul therein. But, cer- 
 tainly he came, more and more, to be 
 unable to care for, or think of foul but 
 as in an actual body, or of any world 
 but that wherein are water and trees, 
 and where men and women look, fo or 
 fo, and prefs atual hands. It was the 
 trick even his pity learned, fattening 
 thofe who fuffered in any-wife to his 
 affe&ions by a kind of fenfible attach- 
 ments. He would think of Julian^ fallen 
 into incurable ficknefs, as fpoiled in the 
 fweet bloflbm of his ikin like pale amber, 
 
 40 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 and his honey-like hair ; of Cecil, early 
 dead, as cut off from the lilies, from 
 golden fummer days, from women's 
 voices ; and then what comforted him 
 a little was the thought of the turning 
 of the child's flefh to violets in the turf 
 above him. And thinking of the very 
 poor, it was not the things which moft 
 men care moft for that he yearned to 
 give them; but fairer rofes, perhaps, and 
 power to tafte quite as they will, at their 
 eafe and not talk-burdened, a certain 
 defirable, clear light in the new morning, 
 through which fometimes he had noticed 
 them, quite unconfcious of it, on their 
 way to their early toil. 
 
 4- 1 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 So he yielded himfelf to thefe things, 
 to be played upon by them like a mufical 
 inftrument, and began to note with 
 deepening watchfulnefs, but always with 
 fome puzzled, unutterable longing in 
 his enjoyment, the phafes of the feafons 
 and of the growing or waning day, down 
 even to the fhadowy changes wrought 
 on bare wall or ceiling the light caft 
 up from the fnow, bringing out their 
 darkeft angles ; the brown light in the 
 cloud, which meant rain that almoft 
 too auftere clearnefs, in the protradted 
 light of the lengthening day, before 
 warm weather began, as if it lingered 
 but to make a feverer workday, with 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 the fchool-books opened earlier and 
 later that beam of June funfhine, at 
 laft, as he lay awake before the time, a 
 way of gold-duft acrofs the darknefs; all 
 the humming, the freflmefs, the perfume 
 of the garden feemed to lie upon it 
 and coming in one afternoon in Sep- 
 tember, along the red gravel walk, to 
 look for a bafket of yellow crab-apples 
 left in the cool, old parlour, he remem- 
 bered it the more, and how the colours 
 ftruck upon him, becaufe a wafp on one 
 bitten apple ftung him, and he felt the 
 paffion of fudden, fevere pain. For this 
 too brought its curious reflexions ; and, 
 in relief from it, he would wonder over 
 
 43 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 it how it had then been with him 
 puzzled at the depth of the charm or 
 fpell over him, which lay, for a little 
 while at leaft, in the mere aWence of 
 pain- once, efpecially, when an older 
 boy taught him to make flowers of feal- 
 ing-wax, and he had burnt his hand 
 badly at the lighted taper, and been un- 
 able to deep. He remembered that alfo 
 afterwards, as a fort of typical thing 
 a white vifion of heat about him, clinging 
 clofely, through the languid fcent of the 
 ointments put upon the place to make 
 it well. 
 
 Alfo, as he felt this preflure upon him 
 of the fenfible world, then, as often af- 
 
 44 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 terwards, there would come another fort 
 of curious queftioning how the laft im- 
 preffions of eye and ear might happen 
 to him, how they would find him the 
 fcent of the laft flower, the foft yellow- 
 nefs of the laft morning, the laft recog- 
 nition of fome objedt of affedHon, hand 
 or voice ; it could not be but that the 
 lateft look of the eyes, before their final 
 clofmg, would be ftrangely vivid , one 
 would go with the hot tears, the cry, the 
 touch of the wiftful byftander, imprefled 
 how deeply on one ! or would it be, per- 
 haps, a mere frail retiring of all things, 
 great or little, away from one, into a 
 level diftance? 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 For with this defire of phyfical beauty 
 mingled itfelf early the fear of death 
 the fear of death intensified by the de- 
 fire of beauty. Hitherto he had never 
 gazed upon dead faces, as fometimes, 
 afterwards, at the Morgue in Paris, or 
 in that fair cemetery at Munich, where 
 all the dead muft go and lie in ftate be- 
 fore burial, behind glafs windows, among 
 the flowers and incenfe and holy candles 
 the aged clergy with their faci ed orna- 
 ments, the young men in their dancing 
 flioes and fpotlefs white linen after 
 which vifits, thofe waxen, refiftlefs faces 
 would always live with him for many 
 days, making the broadeft funfhine 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 fickly. The child had heard indeed of 
 the death of his father, and how, in the 
 Indian ftation, a fever had taken him, 
 fo that though not in adion he had yet 
 died as a foldier ; and hearing of the 
 ' refurredion of the juft, ' he could think 
 of him as ftill abroad in the world, 
 fomehow, for his protection a grand, 
 though perhaps rather terrible figure, in 
 beautiful foldier's things, like the figure 
 in the pi&ure of Jofhuas Vifion in the 
 Bible and of that, round which the 
 mourners moved fo foftly, and after- 
 wards with fuch folemn fmging, as but 
 a worn-out garment left at a deferted 
 lodging. So it was, until on a fummer 
 
 4-7 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 day he walked with his mother through 
 a fair churchyard. In a bright drefs he 
 rambled among the graves, in the gay 
 weather, and fo came, in one corner, 
 upon an open grave for a child a dark 
 fpace on the brilliant grafs the black 
 mould lying heaped up round it, weigh- 
 ing down the little jewelled branches of 
 the dwarf rofe-bufhes in flower. And 
 therewith came, full-grown, never 
 wholly to leave him, with the certainty 
 that even children do fometimes die, 
 the phyfical horror of death, with its 
 wholly felfish recoil from the aflbciation 
 of lower forms of life, and the fuffocating 
 weight above. No benign, grave figure 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 in beautiful foldier's things any longer 
 abroad in the world for his protection ! 
 only a few poor, piteous bones; and 
 above them, poflibly, a certain fort of 
 figure he hoped not to fee. For fitting 
 one day in the garden below an open 
 window, he heard people talking, and 
 could not but liften, how, in a fleeplefs 
 hour, a fick woman had feen one of the 
 dead fitting befide her, come to call 
 her hence ; and from the broken talk, 
 evolved with much clearnefs the notion 
 that not all thofe dead people had really 
 departed to the churchyard, nor were 
 quite fo motionlefs as they looked, but 
 led a fecret, half-fugitive life in their 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 old homes, quite free by night, though 
 fometimes vifible in the day, dodging 
 from room to room, with no great good- 
 will towards thofe who fhared the place 
 with them. All night the figure fat be- 
 fide him in the reveries of his broken 
 deep, and was not quite gone in the 
 morning an odd, irreconcilable new 
 member of the houfehold, making the 
 fweet familiar chambers unfriendly and 
 fufpeft by its uncertain prefence. He 
 could have hated the dead he had pitied 
 fo, for being thus. Afterwards he came 
 to think of thofe poor home-returning 
 ghofts, which all men have fancied to 
 themfelves the rewnants pathetical- 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 ly, as crying, or beating with vain hands 
 at the doors, as the wind came, their 
 cries diftinguifhable in it as a wilder 
 inner note. But, always making death 
 more unfamiliar ftill, that old experience 
 would ever, from time to time, return 
 to him; even in the living he fometimes 
 caught its likenefs; at any time or place, 
 in a moment, the faint atmofphere of 
 the chamber of death would be breathed 
 around him, and the image with the 
 bound chin, the quaint fmile, the 
 ftraight, ftift feet, fhed itfelf acrofs the 
 air upon the bright carpet, amid the 
 gayeft company, or happieft communing 
 with hknfelf. 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 To moft children the fombre ques- 
 tionings to which impreffions like thefe 
 attach themfelves, if they come at all, 
 are actually fuggefted by religious books, 
 which therefore they often regard with 
 much fecret diftafte, and difmifs, as far 
 as poffible, from their habitual thoughts 
 as a too depreffing element in life. To 
 'Flortan fuch impreffions, thefe mifgiv- 
 ings as to the ultimate tendency of the 
 years, of the relationfhip between life 
 and death, had been fuggefted fpontane- 
 oufly in the natural courfe of his mental 
 growth by a ftrong innate fenfe for the 
 foberer tones in things, further ftrength- 
 ened by adual circumftances ; and 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 religious fentiment, that fyftem of bib- 
 lical ideas in which he had been brought 
 up, prefented itfelf to him as a thing 
 that might foften and dignify, and light 
 up as with a c lively hope/ a melancholy 
 already deeply fettled in him. So he 
 yielded himfelf eafily to religious im- 
 preffions, and with a kind of myftical 
 appetite for facred things ; the more as 
 they came to him through a faintly per- 
 fon who loved him tenderly, and believed 
 that this early preoccupation with them 
 already marked the child out for a faint. 
 He began to love, for their own fakes, 
 church lights, holy days, all that belonged 
 to the comely order of the fandtuary, the 
 
 53 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 fccrets of its white Iinen 3 and holy ves- 
 felSj and fonts of pure water ; and its 
 hieratic purity and fimplicity became the 
 type of fomething he defired always to 
 have about him in adtual life. He pored 
 over the pictures in religious books, and 
 knew by heart the exat mode in which 
 the wreftling angel grafped Jacob^ how 
 Jacob looked in his myfterious deep, 
 how the bells and pomegranates were 
 attached to the hem of Aaron 's vefl> 
 ment, founding fweetly as he glided over 
 the turf of the holy place. His way of 
 conceiving religion came then to be 
 m effedt what it ever afterwards re- 
 maineda facred hiftory, indeed^ but 
 
IN THE HOVSS 
 
 ftill more a facred ideal, a tranfcendent 
 verfion or reprefentation, under intenfer 
 and more expreffive light and fhade, of 
 human life and its familiar or excep- 
 tional incidents, birth, death, marriage, 
 youth, age, tears, joy, reft, fleep, wak- 
 ing a mirror, towards which men 
 might turn away their eyes from vanity 
 and dullnefs, and fee themfelves therein 
 as angels, with their daily meat and 
 drink, even, become a kind of facred 
 tranfadion a complementary ftrain or 
 burden, applied to our every-day exis- 
 tence, whereby the ftray fnatches of 
 mufic in it re-fet themfelves, and fall 
 into the fcheme of fome higher and more 
 
 5? 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 confiftent harmony. A place adumbra- 
 ted itfelf in his thoughts, wherein thofe 
 facred perfonalities, which are at once 
 the reflex and the pattern of our nobler 
 phafes of life, houfed themfelves ; and 
 this region in his intellectual fcheme 
 all fubfequent experience did but tend 
 ftill further to realife and define. Some 
 ideal, hieratic perfons he would always 
 need to occupy it and keep a warmth 
 there. And he could hardly underftand 
 thofe who felt no fuch need at all, find- 
 ing themfelves quite happy without fuch 
 heavenly companionfhip, and facred 
 double of their life, befide them. 
 
 Thus a conftant fubftitution of the 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 typical for the akual took place in his 
 thoughts. Angels might be met by the 
 way, under Englitti elm or beech-tree ; 
 mere meflengers feemed like angels, 
 bound on celeftial errands; a deep 
 myfticity brooded over real meetings 
 and partings ; marriages were made in 
 heaven ; and deaths alfo, with hands of 
 angels thereupon, to bear foul and body 
 quietly afunder, each to its appointed 
 reft. All the afts and accidents of daily 
 life borrowed a facred colour and fig- 
 nificance ; the very colours of things 
 became themfelves weighty with mean- 
 ings like the facred fluffs of Mofes* 
 tabernacle, full of penitence or peace. 
 
 J7 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 Sentiment, congruous in the firff inftance 
 only with thofe divine tranfa&ions, the 
 deep, effufive un<5tion of the houfe of Be- 
 thany, was affumed as the due attitude 
 for the reception of our every-day exift- 
 ence ; and for a time he walked through 
 the world in a fuftained, not unpleafu*- 
 rable awe, generated by the habitual 
 recognition, befide every circumftance 
 and event of life, of its celeftial corres- 
 pondent. 
 
 Senfibility the defire of phyfical 
 beauty a ftrange biblical awe, which 
 made any reference to the unfeen at on 
 him like folemn mufic thefe qualities 
 the child took away with him, when, at 
 
 58 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 about the age of twelve years, he left 
 the old houfe, and was taken to live in 
 another place. He had never left home 
 before, and, anticipating much from this 
 change, had long dreamed over it, jea- 
 loufly counting the days till the time 
 fixed for departure ihould come : had 
 been a little carelefs about others, even, 
 in his ftrong defire for it when Lewis 
 fell fick, for inftance, and they muft 
 wait ftill two days longer. At laft the 
 morning came, very fine ; and all things 
 the very pavement with its dull, at 
 the road-fide feemed to have a white, 
 pearl-like luftre in them. They were 
 to travel by a favourite road on which 
 
 59 
 
THE CHILD 
 
 he had often walked a certain diftance, 
 and on one of thofe two prifoner days, 
 when Lewis was fick, had walked farther 
 than ever before, in his great defire to 
 reach the new place. They had ftarted 
 and gone a little way when a pet bird 
 was found to have been left behind, and 
 mult even now fo it prefented itfelf 
 to him have already all the appealing 
 fiercenefs and wild felf-pity at heart of 
 one left by others to perifh of hunger 
 in a clofed houfe; and he returned to 
 fetch it, himfelf in hardly lefs ftormy 
 diftrefs. But as he paffed in fearch of 
 it from room to room, lying fo pale, with 
 a look of meeknefs in their denudation, 
 
 60 
 
IN THE HOVSE 
 
 and at laft through that little, ftripped 
 white room, the afpedt of the place 
 touched him like the face of one dead - 
 and a clinging back towards it came 
 over him, fo intenfe that he knew it 
 would laft long, and fpoiling all his plea- 
 fiire in the realifation of a thing fo 
 eagerly anticipated. And fo, with the 
 bird found, but himfelf in an agony of 
 home-ficknefs, thus capricioufly fprung 
 up within him, he was driven quickly 
 away, far into the rural diftance, fo 
 fondly fpeculated on, of that favourite 
 country-road. 
 
 1878. 
 
 61 
 
PRINTED BY H. DANIEL : 
 OXFORD: 1894.