"
There is nothing more to be said about Chapman's. I left after an
offer of partnership, which, it is needless to say, I did not
accept. Mr. Whitbread obtained for me a clerkship in the Registrar-
General's office, Somerset House. I was there two or three years,
and was then transferred to the Admiralty. Meanwhile I had married.
The greater part of my life has been passed in what it is now usual
to contemn as the Victorian age. Whatever may be the justice of the
scorn poured out upon it by the superior persons of the present
generation, this Victorian age was distinguished by an enthusiasm
which can only be compared to a religious revival. Maud was read at
six in the morning as I walked along Holborn; Pippa Passes late at
night in my dark little room in Serle Street, although of course it
was a long while after the poem made its appearance. Wonderful!
What did I see as I stood at my desk in my Serle Street bedroom?
"Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last;
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppresst it lay--"
There on the horizon lies the cloud cup. Over the brim boils, pure
gold, the day! The day which is before me is Pippa's day, and not a
day in the Strand: it is a "twelve-hours treasure": I am as eager
as Pippa "not to squander a wavelet of thee".
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