But the slender thread that bound him to this mortal existence did not break. The babe crawled from his cradle and toddled into the fields, where he would sit motionless for hours, by the side of some flower he loved. A grave smile would illumine his countenance if a butterfly rested on it, or a passing bird brushed it with her wing. He always expected to see the flower fly, too; and therefore he watched it so patiently, as it swayed under their light pressure. In very early childhood, he was remarkable for the keenness of his senses and the vividness of his dreams. He heard distant sounds, inaudible even to the quick ear of his playmate the hound; and the perfume of a rose made him faint, before he was old enough to explain why he turned so pale. At vintage time, when processions in honor of Bacchus passed through the village, his mother dared not take him to the show, where all other children were dancing and capering; for once, when she carried him with her to the rustic festival, he fell into violent fits at the sound of the shrill pipes and the clashing cymbals. His dreams furnished a theme for all the gossips of the neighborhood; for the scenes he witnessed in sleep impressed themselves on his mind with such singular distinctness, that nothing could persuade the child he had not actually seen them. Sometimes, when they gave him his little bowl of goat’s milk for supper, he would cry for the lamb with beautiful rose-coloured wool, that had eaten a portion of his milk the night before; and it was quite useless to try to persuade him that there was no such creature as a rose-coloured lamb. To all their assertions, he would answer, with lively pertinacity, “I did _see_ him! I did _see_ him; and he did drink from my bowl.” As he grew older, he sometimes hummed snatches of tunes, which he said were sung to him by maidens in white robes, with garlands about their heads; and the melodies were unlike any known in the neighbourhood. Several times, as he walked along the road, he started suddenly at the approach of a stranger, and ran away shuddering. When his companions asked why he did so, he would answer, “Ah, that was a very bad man. He made me feel all over cold.”