He had never in the old
days that were so near and yet seemed so far behind him, consciously
cared for the sunlight: now even the shadows were marvellous in his
eyes, and the glitter the golden weather-cock on the tower was like
a cry of the prophet Isaiah. High and alone in the clear blue air it
swung, an endless warning to him that veers with the wind of the
world, the words of men, the summer breezes of their praise, or the
bitter blasts of their wintry blame; it was no longer to him a cock
of the winds, but a cock of the truth--a Peter-cock, that crew aloud
in golden shine its rebuke of cowardice and lying. Never before had
he sought acquaintance with the flowers that came dreaming up out of
the earth in the woods and the lanes like a mist of loveliness, but
the spring-time came in his own soul, and then he knew the children
of the spring. And as the joy of the reviving world found its way
into the throats of the birds, so did the spring in his reviving
soul find its way into the channels of thought and speech, and issue
in utterance both rhythmic and melodious.--But not in any, neither
in all of these things lay the chief sign and embodiment of the
change he recognised in himself.
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