--the dukkeripen of the woods, the streams, the stars, and the
winds. But when I came to analyse the theories of man's place in
nature expressed in the ignorant language of this Romany heathen,
they seemed to me only another mode of expressing the mysticism of
the religious enthusiast Wilderspin, the more learned and
philosophic mysticism of my father, and the views of D'Arcy, the
dreamy painter.
As I rode back to London, I said to myself, 'What change has come
over me? What power has been gradually sapping my manhood? Why do I,
who was so self-reliant, long now so passionately for a friend to
whom to unburthen my soul--one who could give me a sympathy as deep
and true as that I got from Sinfi Lovell, and yet the sympathy of a
mind unclouded by ignorant superstitions?'
With the exception of D'Arcy, whose advice as to the disposal of the
cross had proclaimed him to be as superstitious as Sinfi herself, not
a single friend had I in all London. Indeed, besides Lord Sleaford (a
tall, burly man with the springy movement of a prize-tighter, with
blue-grey eyes, thick, close-cropped hair, and a flaxen moustache,
who had lately struck up a friendship with my mother) I had not even
an acquaintance.
Pages:
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454