By
degrees I fell into the habit of reading at nights, and the steady life
made my brain clear. Books that had been dim memories to me for years
became vivid, and the power of sustained thinking came back. In those
long, calm evenings, I went through my Gibbon again, and the awful
pageant that rolls past our view under the direction of the aristocrat
of literature made my late life seem poor and mean. How low we were! The
darkened costers are interesting as studies in animal life; but the more
pretentious persons whose humour reaches its highest flight in an
indecent story, and whose wit consists in calling someone else a
liar--how petty they are, and how fruitless is their friendship! I began
to feel like a patrician who surveys the mob from his lordly dais, and I
almost resolved to go back to the clubs and theatres once more.
Teddy increased so much in mental power that he took interest in fairy
tales, and he was a rigorous taskmaster. I was obliged to illustrate the
stories in varied ways.
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