In all this there was not anything lackadaisical, nor any maundering about Nature, but only the life you might expect in a hardy mountain-bred boy, with robust body and strong animal spirits. These things he shared with other boys. There was nothing special in them. But what was peculiar, eminently his own, was this—the feelings that sometimes came to him in the very midst of the wild hill sports—in the pauses of the boisterous games. There were times when, detached from his companions, alone in lonely places, he felt from within
“Gleams like the flashing of a shield, the earth
And common face of Nature spake to him
Rememberable things.”
During his later school years he tells us that he would walk alone under the quiet stars, and
“Feel whate’er there is of power in sound
To breathe an elevated mood, by form
Or image unprofaned, and I would stand,
In the night blackened with a coming storm,
Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are