"O me! O me! How I love the earth, and the seasons, and weather,
and all things that deal with it, and all that grows out of it--as
this has done! The earth and the growth of it and the life of it!
If I could but say or show how I love it!"
The pure lyrical beauty of these passages makes one out of conceit
with one's own clumsy sentences. But still, I will say how all that
afternoon, among the quiet fields, with the white clouds rolling up
over the lip of the wolds, I was haunted with the thought of that
burly figure; the great head with its curly hair and beard; the
eyes that seemed so guarded and unobservant, and that yet saw and
noted every smallest detail; the big clumsy hands, apt for such
delicacy of work; to see him in his rough blue suit, his easy
rolling gait, wandering about, stooping to look at the flowers in
the beds, or glancing up at the sky, or sauntering off to fish in
the stream, or writing swiftly in the parlour, or working at his
loom; so bluff, so kindly, so blunt in address, so unaffected,
loving all that he saw, the tide of full-blooded and restless life
running so vigorously in his veins; or, further back, Rossetti,
with his wide eyes, half bright, half languorous, pale, haunted
with impossible dreams, pacing, rapt in feverish thought, through
the lonely fields.
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