nning to be left out in the cold,
when men like Sir W. R. Grove turn round on him and tell him that
"the principle of all certitude" is not and cannot be the testimony
of his own senses; that these senses, indeed, are no absolute tests
of phenomena at all; that probably man is surrounded by beings he can
neither see, feel, hear, nor smell; and that, notwithstanding the
excellence of his own eyes, ears, and nose, the universe the
materialist is mapping out so deftly is, and must be, monophysical,
lightless, colourless, soundless--a phantasmagoric show--a deceptive
series of undulations, which become colour, or sound, or what not,
according to the organism upon which they fall.'

These words were followed by a sequence of mystical sonnets about
"the Omnipotence of Love," which showed, beyond doubt, that if my
father was not a scientific thinker, he was, at least, a very
original poet. And this made me perplexed as to what could have drawn
Wilderspin, who scorned the art of poetry, into the meshes of _The
Veiled Queen_. Perhaps, however, it was because Wilderspin's ancestry
was, notwithstanding his English name, largely, if not wholly, Welsh,
as I learnt from Cyril. Welshmen, whether sensitive or not to the
rhythmic expression of the English language, are almost all, I
believe, of the poetic temperament.

But from this moment my mind began to run upon the picture of Fenella
Stanley, surrounded by those Snowdonian spirits which her music was
supposed to have evoked from the mountain air of the morning.

XIII

THE MAGIC OF SNOWDON

I

In a few days I left London and went to North Wales.

Opposite to me in the railway carriage sat an elderly lady, into
whose face I occasionally felt myself to be staring in an unconscious
way. But I was merely communing with myself: I was saying to myself,
'My love of North Wales, and especially of Snowdon, is certainly very
strong; but it is easily accounted for--it is a matter of
temperament. Even had Wales not been associated with Winnie, I still
must have dearly loved it. Much has been said about the effect of
scenery upon the minds and temperaments of those who are native to
it. But temperament is a matter of ancestral conditions: the place of
one's birth is an accident. As some, like my cousin Percy, for
instance are born with a passion for the sea, and some with a passion
for forests, some with a passion for mountains, and some with a
passion for rolling plains. The