Page 145 - swanns-way

which my feeble senses would be powerless to discern, did
he not bring them within my reach, I wished that I might
have his opinion, some metaphor of his, upon everything in
the world, and especially upon such things as I might have
an opportunity, some day, of seeing for myself; and among
such things, more particularly still upon some of the historic
buildings of France, upon certain views of the sea, because
the emphasis with which, in his books, he referred to these
shewed that he regarded them as rich in significance and
beauty. But, alas, upon almost everything in the world his
opinion was unknown to me. I had no doubt that it would
differ entirely from my own, since his came down from an
unknown sphere towards which I was striving to raise my-
self; convinced that my thoughts would have seemed pure
foolishness to that perfected spirit, I had so completely
obliterated them all that, if I happened to find in one of his
books something which had already occurred to my own
mind, my heart would swell with gratitude and pride as
though some deity had, in his infinite bounty, restored it
to me, had pronounced it to be beautiful and right. It hap-
pened now and then that a page of Bergotte would express
precisely those ideas which I used often at night, when I was
unable to sleep, to write to my grandmother and mother,
and so concisely and well that his page had the appearance
of a collection of mottoes for me to set at the head of my let-
ters. And so too, in later years, when I began to compose a
book of my own, and the quality of some of my sentences
seemed so inadequate that I could not make up my mind
to go on with the undertaking, I would find the equivalent

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