Clothed now with the sun, he
is crowned by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes to bathe, and the
reflection of an early moon is under his feet.
So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature. They
are so quickly restored. There seems to be nothing to do, but only a
little thing to undo. It is like the art of Eleonora Duse. The last and
most finished action of her intellect, passion, and knowledge is, as it
were, the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken for art by
other actors, some little obstacle to the way and liberty of Nature.
All the squalor is gone in a moment, kicked off with the second boot, and
the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour
of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he still
shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and elastic
syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, his
brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening
midsummer sun, he gives his colours to his world again.
It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, where Nature
has lapsed, to replace Nature.
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