in it--the revelation of great mysteries in unnoticed things; and
as not a sparrow may fall unconsidered by Him, so even in the
swaying of a human hand His sceptre may have dominion over the
heart and His paradise be entered in the lifting of an eyelid.

1902





THE BOYHOOD OF A POET


When I was a boy I knew another who has since become famous and
who has now written Reveries over Childhood and Youth. I searched
the pages to meet the boy I knew and could not find him. He has
told us what he saw and what he remembered of others, but from
himself he seems to have passed away and remembers himself not.
The boy I knew was darkly beautiful to look on, fiery yet playful
and full of lovely and elfin fancies. He was swift of response,
indeed over-generous to the fancies of others because a nature so
charged with beauty could not but emit beauty at every challenge.
Even so water, however ugly the object we cast upon it, can but
break out in a foam of beauty and a bewilderment of lovely curves.

Our fancies were in reality nothing to him but the affinities which
by the slightest similitude evoked out of the infinitely richer
being the prodigality of beautiful images with which it was endowed
and made itself conscious of itself. I have often thought how