in my mind
ever since. It was not so much the beautiful in all Nature which I saw,
as that in Nature which was within the power of the skilled artist to
execute. In like manner the practised reflector and writer reads books
in everything to a degree which no other person can understand.
Wordsworth attained this stage, and the object of the "Excursion" is to
teach it.

In the "Letters of James Smetham" there is a passage to the effect that
he felt extremely happy among English hedgerows, and found inexhaustible
delight in English birds, trees, flowers, hills, and brooks, but could
not appreciate his little back-garden with a copper-beech, a weeping-ash,
nailed-up rose trees, and twisting creepers. After I had made a habit,
till it became a passion, of seeking decorative motives, strange and
novel curves--in short, began to detect the transcendent alphabet or
written language of beauty and mystery in every plant whatever (of which
the alphabet may be found in the works of Hulme), I found in every growth
of every kind, yes, in every weed, enough to fill my soul with both art
and poetry; I may say specially in weeds, since in them the wildest and
most graceful motives are more abundant than in garden flowers. Unto me
_now_ anything that grows is, in simple truth, more than what any
landscape once was. This began in youth in much reading of, and long
reflection on, the signatures, correspondences, and mystical fancies of
the Paracelsian writers--especially of Gaffarel, of whom I have a Latin
version by me as I write--and of late years I have carried its
inspiration into decorative art. I have said so much of this because, as
this is an autobiography, I cannot omit from it something which, unseen
in actions, still forms a predominant motive in my life. It is something
which, while it perfectly embraces _all_ landscaping or picture-making or
dainty delicate cataloguing in poetry, _a la_ Morris at times, or like
the Squyre of Lowe Degre, in detail, also involves a far more earnest
feeling, and one which combines thought or _religion_ with emotion, just
as a melody which we associate with a beautiful poem is worth more to us
than one which we do not. Burne Jones is a higher example of this.

During this season we met at Mrs. Inwood Jones'--who was a niece of Lady
Morgan and had many interesting souvenirs of her aunt--several people of
note, among whom was Mme. Taglioni, now a very agreeable and graceful
though naturally