class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 45]"/> shot only, as a schoolboy, in clandestine and bloodless expeditions against blackbirds and yellowhammers.

The duelling pistols were a most discordant interruption of the repose of a quiet country walk; besides, he handled them with such inconceivable carelessness, that I had perpetually reason to apprehend that, as a trifling episode in the grand and heroic work of drilling a hole through the back of a card or the front of one of his father’s franks, he would shoot himself, or me, or both of us. How often have I lamented that Nature, which so rarely bestows upon the world a creature endowed with such marvellous talents, ungraciously rendered the gift less precious by implanting a fatal taste for perilous recreations, and a thoughtlessness in the pursuit of them, that often caused his existence from one day to another to seem in itself miraculous. I opposed the practice of walking armed, and I at last succeeded in inducing him to leave the pistols at home, and to forbear the use of them. I prevailed, I believe, not so much by argument or persuasion, as by secretly abstracting, when he equipped himself for the field, and it was not difficult with him, the powder-flask, the flints or some other indispensable article. One day, I remember, he was grievously discomposed and seriously offended to find, on producing his pistols, after descending rapidly into a quarry, where he proposed to take a few shots, that not only had the flints been removed, but the screws and the bits of steel at the top of the cocks which hold the flints were also wanting. He determined to return to college for them—I accompanied him. I tempted him, however, by the way, to try to define anger, and to discuss the nature of that affection of the mind, to which, as the discussion waxed warm, he grew exceedingly hostile in theory, and could not be brought to admit that it could possibly be excusable in any case. In the course of conversation, moreover, he suffered himself to be insensibly turned away from his original path and purpose. I have heard that, some years after he left Oxford, he resumed the practice of pistol-shooting, and attained to a very unusual degree of skill in an accomplishment so entirely incongruous with his nature.

Of rural excursions he was at all times fond. He loved to walk in the woods, to stroll on the banks of the Thames, but especially to wander about Shotover Hill. There was a pond at the foot of the hill, before ascending it and on the left of the road; it was formed by the water which had filled an old quarry. Whenever he was permitted to shape his course as he would, he proceeded to the edge of this pool, although the scene had no other attractions than a certain wildness and barrenness. Here he would linger until dusk, gazing in silence on the water, repeating verses aloud, or earnestly discussing themes that had no connection with surrounding objects. Sometimes he would raise a stone as large as he could lift, deliberately throw it into the water as far as his strength enabled him, then he would loudly exult at the splash, and would quietly watch the decreasing agitation, until the last faint ring and almost imperceptible ripple disappeared on the still surface. “Such are the effects of an impulse on the air,” he would say; and he complained of our ignorance of the theory of sound—that the subject was obscure and mysterious, and many of the phenomena were contradictory and inexplicable. He asserted that the science of acoustics ought to be cultivated, and that by well-devised experiments valuable discoveries would undoubtedly be made, and he related many remarkable stories connected with the subject that he had heard or read. Sometimes he would busy himself in splitting slaty stones, in selecting thin and flat pieces and in giving them a round form, and when he had collected a sufficient number, he would gravely make ducks and drakes with them, counting, with the utmost glee, the number of bounds as they flew along, skimming the surface of the pond. He was a devoted worshipper of the water-nymphs, for, whenever he found a pool, or even a small puddle, he would loiter near it, and it was no easy task to get him to quit it. He had not yet learned that art from which he afterwards derived so much pleasure—the construction of paper boats. He twisted a morsel of paper into a form that a lively fancy might consider a likeness of a boat, and, committing it to the water, he anxiously watched the fortunes of the frail bark, which, if it was not soon swamped by the faint winds and miniature waves, gradually imbibed water through its porous sides, and sank. Sometimes, however, the fairy vessel performed its little voyage, and reached the opposite shore of the puny ocean in safety. It is astonishing with what keen delight he engaged in this singular pursuit. It was not easy for an uninitiated spectator to bear with tolerable patience the vast delay on the brink of a wretched pond upon a bleak common and in the face of a cutting north-east wind, on returning to dinner from a long walk at sunset on a cold winter’s day; nor was it easy to be so harsh as to interfere with a harmless gratification that was evidently exquisite. It was not easy, at least, to induce the shipbuilder to desist from launching his tiny fleets, so long as any timber remained in the dock-yard. I prevailed once and once only. It was one of those bitter Sundays that commonly receive the new year; the sun had set, and it had almost begun to snow. I had exhorted him long in vain, with the eloquence of a frozen and famished man, to proceed. At last I said in despair—alluding to his never-ending creations, for a paper navy that was to be set afloat simultaneously lay at his feet, and he was busily constructing more, with blue and swollen hands—“Shelley, there is no use in talking to you; you are the Demiurgus of Plato!” He instantly caught up the whole flotilla, and, bounding homeward with mighty strides, laughed aloud—laughed like a giant as he used to say. So long as his paper lasted, he remained riveted to the spot, fascinated by this peculiar amusement. All waste paper was rapidly consumed, then the covers of letters; next, letters of little value; the most precious contributions of the most esteemed correspondent, although eyed wistfully many times and often returned to the pocket, were sure to be sent at last in pursuit of the former squadrons. Of the portable volumes which were the companions of his rambles, and he seldom went out without a book, the fly-leaves were commonly wanting—he had applied them as our ancestor Noah applied Gopher wood. But learning was so sacred in his eyes, that he never trespassed farther upon the integrity of the copy; the work itself was always respected. It has been said that he once found himself on the north bank of the Serpentine river without the materials for indulging those inclinations which the sight of water invariably inspired, for he had exhausted his supplies on the round pond in Kensington Gardens. Not a single scrap of paper could be found, save only a bank-post bill for fifty pounds. He hesitated long, but yielded at last. He twisted it into a boat with the extreme refinement of his skill, and committed it with the utmost dexterity to fortune, watching its progress, if possible, with a still more intense anxiety than usual. Fortune often favours those who frankly and fully trust her; the north-east wind gently wafted the costly skiff to the south bank, where, during the latter part of the voyage, the venturous owner had waited its arrival with patient solicitude. The story, of course, is a mythic fable, but it aptly pourtrays the