him hunger night and day for knowledge, travel, experience. Thanks to
his father's shop, he had read a great deal already; and with a little
money, how he would buy books, how he would read them!--

And at the thought, fresh images, now in rushing troops, and now in
solitary fantastic beauty, began to throng before the inward eye,
along the rich background of the valley; images from poetry and
legend, stored deep in a greedy fancy, a retentive mind. They came
from all sources--Greek, Arthurian, modern; Hephaestus, the lame god
and divine craftsman, receiving Thetis in his workshop of the skies,
the golden automata wrought by his own hands supporting him on either
side; the maidens of Achilles washing the dead and gory body of Hector
in the dark background of the hut, while in front swift-foot Achilles
holds old Priam in talk till the sad offices are over, and the father
may be permitted to behold his son; Arthur and Sir Bedivere beside
the lake; Crusaders riding to battle--the gleam of their harness--the
arched necks of their steeds--the glory of their banners--the shade
and sunlight of the deep vales through which they pass; the Lady of
Shalott as the curse conies upon her--Oenone--Brunhilda--Atalanta.
Swift along the May woods the figures fled, vision succeeding vision,
beauty treading on beauty. It became hallucination--a wildness--an
ecstasy. Fenwick stood still, gave himself up to the possession--let
it hold him--felt the strangeness and the peril of it--then, suddenly,
wrenched himself free.

Running down to the edge of the river, he began to pick up stones
and throw them violently into the stream. It was a remedy he had long
learnt to use. The physical action released the brain from the tyranny
of the forms which held it. Gradually they passed away. He began to
breathe more quietly, and, sitting down by the water, his head in his