Page:Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination, Walter de la Mare, 1919.djvu/39

Rh eye. One was conscious of occasional shynesses and silences, even a little awkwardness at times that was in itself a grace. One was still more conscious of an insatiable interest and speculation. His quiet gaze took you in; yours couldn't so easily take him in. These are but my own remembrances, few, alas, however vivid and unfading: and even at that they are merely those of one of the less responsive sex!

In spite of life little disillusionments (which, it is prudent to remember, we may cause as well as endure): in spite of passing moods of blackness and revulsion, nothing could be clearer in his poems, in his letters, and in himself, than his zest and happiness. Looking back on his school-life he said that he had been happier than he could find words to say. What wonder that at twenty he describes himself as in the depths of despondency "because of my age"? And a little later: "I am just too old for romance." What does that mean but that he found life so full and so arresting that he was afraid he might not be able to keep pace with it? It was a needless apprehension. The sea was deep beneath the waves and the foam. If he had lived to be, let us say, forty, he would have said just the same thing, though, perhaps, with more