That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea of black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon, full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart was full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this splendour--a splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a craftsman feels, when some new and wonderful tools have been given to him; as a woman feels the child in her womb, stirring mysteriously, moving her to deep and glad thankfulness, so now, with the night wind blowing about him, and all London lying, dark and motionless, below him, he felt the first stirring of his power. This was his to work with, this was his to praise and glorify and make beautiful--now crude and formless--a seed dark and without form or colour--one day to make one more flower in that garden that God has given his servants to work in.
He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to him, and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that mighty city, he would make one little stone that might be added to that Eternal Temple of Beauty....
He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of Mr. Zanti and Stephen's letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers, of this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes ... finally, for a little, of himself--of his temper and his ambitions and his selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the truth.
He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal if he were to write that great book that he thought of: “Little Peter Westcott,” London seemed to say, “there's lots to be done to you first before you're worth anything ... I'll batter at you.”
Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front of him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising to his open window.
There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon's about a man who caught--as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time--the disease of the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his luxurious chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of his handsome silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest thing that held his attention--the noise of the rumbling of the traffic down Piccadilly--but he was startled and, on that morning, he left his breakfast unfinished. He had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic on many other occasions--it may be said to have been the musical accompaniment to his breakfast for many years past. But on this morning it was different; as one has a headache before scarlet fever so did this young man hear the rumble of the traffic down Piccadilly. He listened to it very attentively, and it was, he told himself, very like the noise of some huge animal breathing in its sleep. There was a regularity, a monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense of great force, quiescent now and held in restraint. He was a very normal, well-balanced young man and thoughts of this kind were unlike him.