I had often, as I walked the London streets, peopled an imaginary world of my own with a few hundreds of such beings, made flesh and blood, and pictured them as a kind of beneficent aristocracy seven feet high, with minds and manners to match their physique, and set above the rest of the world for its good; for I found it necessary (so that my dream should have a point) to provide them with a foil in the shape of millions of such people as we meet every day. I was egotistic and self-seeking enough, it is true, to enroll myself among the former, and had chosen for my particular use and wear just such a frame as that of the Theseus, with, of course, the nose and hands and feet (of which time has bereft him) restored, and all mutilations made good. And for my mistress and companion I had duly selected no less a person than the Venus of Milo (no longer armless), of which Lintot possessed a plaster-cast, and whose beauties I had foreseen before I ever beheld them with the bodily eye. "Monsieur n'est pas degoute!" as Ibbetson would have remarked. But most of all did I pant for the music which is divine. Alas, that concerts and operas and oratorios should not be as free to the impecunious as the National Gallery and the British Museum--a privilege which is not abused! Impecunious as I was, I sometimes had pence enough to satisfy this craving, and discovered in time such realms of joy as I had never dreamed of; such monarchs as Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven, and others, of whom my father knew apparently so little; and yet they were more potent enchanters than Gretry, Herold, and Boieldieu, whose music he sang so well. I discovered, moreover, that they could do more than charm--they could drive my weary self out of my weary soul, and for a space fill that weary soul with courage, resignation, and hope. No Titian, no Shakespeare, no Phidias could ever accomplish that--not even Mr. William Makepeace Thackeray or Mr. Alfred Tennyson. My sweetest recollections of this period of my life (indeed, the only sweet recollections) are of the music I heard, and the places where I heard it; it was an enchantment! With what vividness I can recall it all! The eager anticipation for days; the careful selection, beforehand, from such an _embarras de richesses_ as was duly advertised; then the long waiting in the street, at the doors reserved for those whose portion is to be the gallery. The hard-won seat aloft is reached at last, after a selfish but good-humored struggle up the long stone staircase (one is sorry for the weak, but a famished ear has no conscience). The gay and splendid house is crammed; the huge chandelier is a golden blaze; the delight of expectation is in the air, and also the scent of gas, and peppermint, and orange-peel, and music-loving humanity, whom I have discovered to be of sweeter fragrance than the common herd. [Illustration]