Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/20

 for those flakes of dust I called "quacks." I do not know where the name came from, nor why I should have disliked "quacks," but they affected me with a strange dread, and here was a whole army of them where I had never seen but one or two. Some stupid person running after me with a broom pretended to sweep them over me, and I started bawling at the top of my voice. Then, for consolation, I was lifted up to bury my nose in a bowl of violets, and the colour and sweetness of the flowers took away my trouble. Probably it was later than this that I first became aware of a peculiar sensibility to dress—not to underclothing, but to my outer garments. To be dressed in a new suit of clothes gave me a curious physical pleasure—a feeling purely sensual, and that must, I imagine, have been connected with the dawn of obscure sex instincts. Such things can be of little interest save to the student of psychology, and it would be tedious to catalogue them in full, but I have no doubt myself that if they, and others, had been intelligently observed, the whole of my future could have been cast from them. To me, I confess, they throw a disquieting light upon all human affairs, reviving that sombre figure of destiny which overshadowed the antique world.

Another and happier instinct which I brought with me from the unknown was an intense sympathy with animals. There was not a cat or dog or goat or donkey in the village that I had not struck up a friendship with. I even carried this sympathy so far as to insist on feeding daily the ridiculous stone lions which flanked the doorsteps at Derryaghy House. I don’t think I ever actually believed that their morning meal of stale bread gave much pleasure to these patient beasts, and I had with my own eyes seen sparrows and thrushes—who very soon came to look out for me—snatch it from them before my back was turned; still, I persevered, stroking their smooth backs, kissing their cold muzzles, just as I lavished depths of affection on a stuffed,