His blue eyes were tragically fresh and clear,--as though they had as yet been little used.

There were little wings of haste upon his feet, and he came straight to me, with the air of the Angel Gabriel about to make his divine announcement.

For a moment I thought that he was an apparition of prophecy charged to announce the maiden of the Lord for whom I was seeking.

However, his brief flushed question was not of these things.
He desired first to ask the time of day, and next--here, after a bump to the earth, one's thoughts ballooned again heavenwards--"had I seen a green copy of Shelley lying anywhere along the road ?" Nothing so good had happened to me, I replied--but I believed that I had seen a copy of Alastor! For a moment my meaning was lost on him; then he flushed and smiled, thanked me and was off again, saying that he must find his Shelley, as he wouldn't lose it for the world! He had presently disappeared as suddenly as he had come, but he had left me a companion, a radiant reverberant name; and for some little space the name of Shelley clashed silvery music among the hills.
Its seven letters seemed to hang right across the clouds like the Seven Stars, an apocalyptic constellation, a veritable sky sign; and again the name was an angel standing with a silver trumpet, and again it was a song.

The heavens opened, and across the blue rift it hung in a glory of celestial fire, while from behind and above the clouds came a warbling as of innumerable larks.
How strange was this miracle of fame, I pondered, this strange apotheosis by which a mere private name becomes a public symbol! Shelley was once a private person whose name had no more universal meaning than my own, and so were Byron and Cromwell and Shakespeare; yet now their names are facts as stubborn as the Rocky Mountains, or the National Gallery, or the circulation of the blood.