with much zest of all my old
friends and companions, telling me how each was faring. Charmides, it
seemed, had become a very accomplished architect and designer; Philip
was a teacher at the College. And he went on until, in spite of my
heaviness, I felt the whole of life beginning to widen and vibrate all
about me, and a sense almost of shame creeping into my mind that I had
become so oblivious of all the other friendships and relations I had
formed. I forced myself to talk and to ask questions, and found myself
walking more briskly. It was not very long before we parted with Lucius.
He was left at the doors of a great barrack-like like building, and
Amroth told me he was to be employed as an officer, very much in the
same way as the young man who was sent to conduct me away from the
trial; and I felt what a good officer Lucius would make--smart, prompt,
polite, and not in the least sentimental.

So we went on together rather gloomily; and then Amroth let me look for
a little deep into his heart; and I saw that it was filled with a kind
of noble pity for me in my suffering; but behind the pity lay that
blissful certainty which made Amroth so light-hearted, that it was just
so, through suffering, that one became wise; and he could no more think
of it as irksome or sad than a jolly undergraduate thinks of the
training for a race or the rowing in the race as painful, but takes it
all with a kind of high-hearted zest, and finds even the nervousness an
exciting thing, life lived at high pressure in a crowded hour.

XXXI

And thus we came ourselves to a new place, though I took but little note
of all we passed, for my mind was bent inward upon itself and upon
Cynthia. The place was a great solid stone building, in many courts,
with fine tree-shaded fields all about; a school, it seemed to me, with
boys and girls going in and out, playing games together. Amroth told me
that children were bestowed here who had been of naturally fine and
frank dispositions, but who had lived their life on earth under foul and
cramped conditions, by which they had been fretted rather than tainted.
It seemed a very happy and busy place. Amroth took me into a great room
that seemed a sort of library or common-room. There was no one there,
and I was glad to sit and rest; when suddenly the door opened, and a man
came in with outstretched hands and a smile of welcome. I looked up,
and it was none but the oldest and dearest friend of my last