' And therewith the clouds cleared from his
mind. The power of FEELING, as well as believing in, the blotting
out of sin, returned, the sense of pardon and peace calmed him, and
from that time he was fully himself again, 'though,' he said, 'I
knew I should not see my mother here.'
If she could only have seen him come home under the Union Jack,
cheered by sailors, and carried ashore by them, it would have been
to her like restoration. Perhaps Clarence in his dreamy weakness
had so felt it, for certainly no other mode of return to Portsmouth,
the very place of his degradation, could so have soothed him and
effaced those memories. The English sounds were a perfect charm to
him, as well as to Lawrence, the commonest street cry, the very
slices of bread and butter, anything that was not Chinese, was as
water to the thirsty! And wasted as was his face, the quiet rest
and joy were ineffable.
Still Portsmouth was not the best place for him, and we were glad
that he was well enough to go up to London in the afternoon;
intensely delighting in the May beauty of the green meadows, and
white blossoming hedgerows, and the Church towers, especially the
gray massiveness of Winchester Cathedral. 'Christian tokens,' he
said, instead of the gay, gilded pagodas and quaint crumpled roofs
he had left. The soft haze seemed to be such a rest after the glare
of perpetual clearness.
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