Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/30

 face when he opened the window. The mighty engines of his imagination were set in motion. He leaned out of the window and snuffed the brutal weather; and through the fierce sleet which stung his eyes and froze on his lips he looked down into London with its lights, its vehicles, and its chaos; unknowing, unheeding, and unseeing, yet in itself magnetic and so mysterious. He felt like an eagle who peers out of his eyrie in the cliffs in the midst of winter to witness the fury of the sea, dashing itself to pieces upon his paternal rocks, and is himself assaulted by the eternal ferocity of nature.