The whole surrounding had to him a sacred look, such as Jerusalem, the temple, and its vessels, bore to the Jews, even those of them who were capable of loving little else.

There was hardly anything that could be called beauty about the building--strength and gloom were its main characteristics--but its very stones were dear to the boy.

There never were such bees, there never were such thick walls, there never were such storms, never such a rushing river, as those about his beloved home! And this although, all the time, as I have said, he longed for more beauty of mountain and wood than the country around could afford him.

Then there were the books belonging to the house!--was there any such a collection in the world besides! They were in truth very few--all contained in a closet opening out of his father's bedroom; but Cosmo had a feeling of inexhaustible wealth in them--partly because his father had not yet allowed him to read everything there, but restricted him to certain of the shelves--as much to cultivate self-restraint in him as to keep one or two of the books from him,--partly because he read books so that they remained books to him, and he believed in them after he had read them, nor imagined himself capable of exhausting them.

But the range of his taste was certainly not a limited one.