There is very little of human emotion in the vision; little dwelling upon companionship and near affections and relationships; and this is true to nature. The child whose nature is thus sensuously perceptive is often so much taken up by mere impression, by the varied, the enchanting outsides of things, the curious forms, the play of colour, the ray of sunlight like gold-dust, the light cast up from the snow upon the ceilings of rooms, that there is little leisure, little energy, to give to the simple affections of life. In this the picture is perfectly faithful; the writer, by a sincerity of retrospect, has avoided the temptation to read into the childish spirit the emotions of the expanding heart; it is all seen in the region of Maiden-sense, in the desirable clear light of the early morning, before the passionate impulses awake, before the intellect expands. Thus the pure art of the conception lies in the picturing the perfect isolation of the childish soul,—not a normal soul, it must be remembered,—though perhaps the haunted emphasis of the style, its luxurious cadence, its mellowing of outline, may tend to disguise from us how real and lifelike indeed, how usual an experience, is being recorded. And for the style itself, it is a perfect example of a kind of poetical prose; there is no involution, no intricacy. The language is perfectly simple; and though some may feel a lusciousness, an over-ripeness of phrase, to predominate, yet the effect is perfectly deliberate, and it is by the intention that we must judge it. It may be set in a paradise of floating melodies in which the brisk, the joyful, the energetic may be loath to linger; yet for all who love the half-lit regions of the spirit, the meditative charm of things, _The Child in the House_ must remain one of the purest pieces of word-melody in the language, and one of the most delicate characterisations of a mood that comes to many and always with a secret and wistful charm.