'
I gave him something to buy tobacco, and watched him as he crawled
away, with a sort of stunned surprise. And he had actually seen
Nelson sit by Lady Hamilton! It was so strange, to have that gay
Italian bay, with all its memories,--the orgies of Baiae, and the
unburied wrecks of ancient towns, with the smoking crater far above;
and the world-famous Nile-mouths and those great old wars, big with
the destinies of the world; and those great old heroes, with their
awful deeds for good and evil, all brought so suddenly and livingly
before me, up there in the desolate moorland, where the deer, and
birds, and heath, and rushes were even as they had been from the
beginning. Like Wordsworth with his Leech-Gatherer (a poem which I,
in spite of laughter, must rank among his very highest), -
'While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old man's shape, and speech--all troubled me;
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
. . . and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit man so firm a mind.
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