His voice was all the music extant, and it was only by recalling it that our young ears could find that there was beauty in fine singing and melodiousness in the chaunt of birds. Yet when his words were eloquent we forgot the voice and the speaker, content to sacrifice our critical individualities to his inspiration till we were no more than dim and silent figures in the background of his tale. It was only in winter-time that he achieved this supreme illusion; perhaps the firelight helped him, and the chill shadows of the world. In the summer his stories had the witchery of dreams; their realism startled us, and yet we knew that they were not real. After listening to them through a hot afternoon we would stretch back into consciousness, as though we had been asleep; his drowsy fancies lulled our personalities, but did not conquer them. The winter magic was of a rarer kind. Then even his silences became significant, for he brought us to so close an intimacy with his mind that his very thoughts seemed like words. It is idle to expect a child to believe that every grown-up person was a child once upon a time, for it is not credible that they could have forgotten so much. But this man was a child both in feeling and in understanding. He knew the incidents that perplexed us in those nursery legends that have become classics, and sometimes it was his pleasure to tell them to us again, having regard to our wakeful sympathies. He was the friend of all the poor, lost creatures of romance—the giants whose humiliating lot it was to be defeated by any stripling lad, the dragons whose flaming strength was a derision when opposed to virtue in armour. He shared our pity for Antæus and Caliban and Goliath of Gath, and even treated sorcerers and wicked kings with reasonable humanity. Somehow, though we felt that it was wicked, we could not help being sorry for people when they were punished very severely. The very ease with which giants could be outwitted suggested that the great simple fellows might prove amiable enough if they were kindly treated, while it was always possible that dragons might turn out to be bewitched princes, if only the beautiful princesses would kiss them instead of sending heroes to kill them unfairly, without giving them an opportunity of explaining their motives. Our story-teller understood our scruples and sympathised with them, and in his versions every one had a chance, whether they were heroes or no. Even the best children are sometimes cruel, but they are never half so pitiless as the writers of fairy-stories.