His very existence the sense of a sunless, dreary, cold-winded desert, he was evermore confronted, in all his resolves after betterment, by the knowledge that with the first eager mouthful of the strange element, a rosy dawn would begin to flush the sky, a mist of green to cover the arid waste, a wind of song to ripple the air, and at length the misery of the day would vanish utterly, and the night throb with dreams.

For George was by nature no common man.

At heart he was a poet--weak enough, but capable of endless delight.

The time had been when now and then he read a good book and dreamed noble dreams.

Even yet the stuff of which such dreams are made, fluttered in particoloured rags about his life; and colour is colour even on a scarecrow.
He had had a good mother, and his father was a man of some character, both intellectually and socially.