Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/129

HENRY JAMES 103 but rich and provided — just as I took their garden-feast for over- flowing food — and that their state as of children of nature was a refinement of freedom and grace. They ivere to become great and beautiful, the household of that glhnmering vision ; they were to figure historically, heroically, and serve great public ends, but always, to tny remembering eyes and fond fancy, they were to move through life as with the bare white feet of that original. ... 7 preferred fairness and wildness. This is rank embroidery, but the old surface insists itself on spreading — it waits at least with an air of its own. But what comes back to me as the very note and fragrance of the New York cousinship in this general connection is a time that I remember to have glanced at on a page distinct from these, when the particular cousins I now speak of had conceived, under the influence of I know not what unextinguished morning star, the liveliest taste for the earliest possible rambles and researches, in which they were so good as to allow me, when I was otherwise allowed, to participate ; health-giving walks, of an extraordinary matinal character, which made us all feel together, under the con- duct of Honorine, bright child of the pavement herself, as if we, in our fresh curiosity and admiration, had also something to say to the great show presently to be opened, and were free throughout the place, as those are free of a house who know its aspects of attic and cellar or how it looks from behind. . . . Of a wondrous mixed sweetness and sharpness and queerness of uneffaced reminiscence is all that aspect of the cousins and the rambles and the over- lapping nights melting along the odorously bedamped and retouched streets and arcades ; bi^ight in the ineffable mo7*7iing light, above all, of our peculiar young culture and candour. " Bright in the ineffable morning light, above all, of our peculiar young culture and candour." It slides and loops in a perfect cadenza. What does it matter though it does tend to " embroidery," though it isn't true to the particular piece of life ? It's true of life in the lump — that's the very lilt of it, and that " wondrous mixed sweetness and sharpness and queerness" is the very colour that gleams in its web. It convinces us of that, and in our conviction we find it so ; we ar© at once involved in high adventures of our own. " For myself,