The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's
land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some
moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of
spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light;
but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces,
brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak
to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright
kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a
game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as
woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to
close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and
paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight
figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against
theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark
clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep--an
incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by
sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one
of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty
and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch,
ending in a _tout ensemble_ of gentleness and distinction with little
apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.
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