like physical pain,
and I was permitted, without further 'worship', to slip upstairs
to bed.

What made these Sundays, the observance of which was absolutely
uniform, so peculiarly trying was that I was not permitted the
indulgence of any secular respite. I might not open a scientific
book, nor make a drawing, nor examine a specimen. I was not
allowed to go into the road, except to proceed with my parents to
the Room, nor to discuss worldly subjects at meals, nor to enter
the little chamber where I kept my treasures. I was hotly and
tightly dressed in black, all day long, as though ready at any
moment to attend a funeral with decorum. Sometimes, towards
evening, I used to feel the monotony and weariness of my position
to be almost unendurable, but at this time I was meek, and I
bowed to what I supposed to be the order of the universe.

CHAPTER XI

As my mental horizon widened, my Father followed the direction of
my spiritual eyes with some bewilderment, and knew not at what I
gazed. Nor could I have put into words, nor can I even now
define, the visions which held my vague and timid attention. As a
child develops, those who regard it with tenderness or impatience
are seldom even approximately correct in their analysis of its
intellectual movements, largely because, if there is anything to
record, it defies adult definition. One curious freak of
mentality I must now mention, because it took a considerable part
in the enfranchisement of my mind, or rather in the formation of
my thinking habits. But neither my Father nor my stepmother knew
what to make of it, and to tell the truth I hardly know what to
make of it myself.

Among the books which my new mother had brought with her were
certain editions of the poets, an odd assortment. Campbell was
there, and Burns, and Keats, and the 'Tales' of Byron. Each of
these might have been expected to appeal to me; but my emotion
was too young, and I did not listen to them yet. Their imperative
voices called me later. By the side of these romantic classics
stood a small, thick volume, bound in black morocco, and
comprising four reprinted works of the eighteenth century,
gloomy, funereal poems of an order as wholly out of date as are
the crossbones and ruffled cherubim on the gravestones in a
country churchyard. The four--and in this order, as I never shall
forget--were 'The Last Day' of Dr Young, Blair's 'Grave', 'Death'
by Bishop Beilby Porteus, and 'The Deity' of Samuel Boy