is that this thought occurs to me of how differently and clearly he
stands out from all his colleagues and surroundings.

[Sidenote: A reminiscence.]

Different things suggest early associations to different people. Mrs.
Solness, in the "Master Builder," could think only of her dolls when she
was telling the story of the fire that left her childless for ever. I
have heard of a great lady who cannot see a shell without recalling the
scenes of her dead youth before her. Next to the railway bridge which
spans the river in my native town, there is nothing which brings back
the past to me so palpably and so vividly--I might sometimes say, so
poignantly--as the echoes of books. One of my clearest recollections is
of a little room, looking out on a sunny and, as it appeared to me then,
a beautifully-kept garden, with a small but glistening river in the
distance, and the air filled, not only with the songs of birds, but all
the intoxicating and inaudible music of youth's dreams and visions. All
this phantasmagoria of memory is accompanied by the echo of a melodious,
rich voice, rising and falling, in the to me unfamiliar but delightful
accent of an educated Englishman: and the story of Ancient
Greece--sometimes her poetry with the loves of her gods, the fights, the
shouts of battle, the exhortations and the groans of her heroes--rises
once more before me. Or, again, I hear the tale told anew of that great
last immortal day in the life of Socrates, as the great Philosopher sank
to rest in a glory of self-sacrificing submission, serenity, and
courage--a story which moves the world to tears and admiration, and will
continue so to do as long as it endures. The voice of the teacher and
the friend still survives, which had this extraordinary power of giving
in the very different tongue of England all the glories of the poetry
and the prose of Greece; and other youths, doubtless like me, look out