Ptolemy, Dante, the two Bacons, and Boyle were even more to me than Darwin or Maxwell, as so much nearer the vanished van breaking into the dark of ignorance.
In the evening of a gloomy day of August I was sitting in my usual place, my back to one of the windows, reading.

It had rained the greater part of the morning and afternoon, but just as the sun was setting, the clouds parted in front of him, and he shone into the room.

I rose and looked out of the window.

In the centre of the great lawn the feathering top of the fountain column was filled with his red glory.

I turned to resume my seat, when my eye was caught by the same glory on the one picture in the room--a portrait, in a sort of niche or little shrine sunk for it in the expanse of book-filled shelves.