erty--that some one in the house where I lodged played the
piano--and how it rejoiced me when this came to pass! I say "played the
piano"--a phrase that covers much. For my own part, I was very tolerant;
anything that could by the largest interpretation be called music, I
welcomed and was thankful; for even "five-finger exercises" I found, at
moments, better than nothing. For it was when I was labouring at my desk
that the notes of the instrument were grateful and helpful to me. Some
men, I believe, would have been driven frantic under the circumstances;
to me, anything like a musical sound always came as a godsend; it tuned
my thoughts; it made the words flow. Even the street organs put me in a
happy mood; I owe many a page to them--written when I should else have
been sunk in bilious gloom.

More than once, too, when I was walking London streets by night,
penniless and miserable, music from an open window has stayed my step,
even as yesterday. Very well can I remember such a moment in Eaton
Square, one night when I was going back to Chelsea, tired, hungry, racked
by frustrate passions. I had tramped miles and miles, in the hope of
wearying myself so that I could sleep and forget. Then came the piano
notes--I saw that there was festival in the house--and for an hour or so
I revelled as none of the bidden guests could possibly be doing. And
when I reached my poor lodgings, I was no longer envious nor mad with
desires, but as I fell asleep I thanked the unknown mortal who had played
for me, and given me peace.



XXVII.


To-day I have read _The Tempest_. It is perhaps the play that I love
best, and, because I seem to myself to know it so well, I commonly pass
it over in opening the book. Yet, as always in regard to Shakespeare,
having read it once more, I find that my knowledge was less complete than
I supposed. So it would be, live as long as one might; so it would ever
be, whilst one had strength to turn the pages and a mind left to read
them.

I like to believe