For it was water itself that delighted him, whether
in rest or motion; whether rippling over many stones, like the first
half-articulate sounds of a child's speech, mingled with a strange musical
tremble and cadence which the heart only, and not the ear, could detect;
or lying in deep still pools, from the bottom of which gleamed up bright
green stones, or yet brighter water-plants, cool in their little grotto,
with water for an atmosphere and a firmament, through which the sun-rays
came, washed of their burning heat, but undimmed of their splendour. He
would lie for an hour by the side of a hill-streamlet; he would stand
gazing into a muddy pool, left on the road by last night's rain. Once, in
such a brown-yellow pool, he beheld a glory--the sun, encircled with a
halo vast and wide, varied like the ring of opal colours seen about the
moon when she floats through white clouds, only larger and brighter than
that. Looking up, he could see nothing but a chaos of black clouds,
brilliant towards the sun: the colours he could not see, except in the
muddy water.
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