eus
than any man in the world. He seldom lectured; but day by day, year
after year, sat in the window above this same small garden, and
accumulated notes for the great edition of his pet author that some
day--nobody quite knew when--was to make him famous. He was the son of
a Cumberland farmer; had come up to the University from a local
grammar-school; and since then (it was said) had revisited his native
village twice only--to bury his father and mother. His mother's death--
and that had happened five-and-twenty years before--left him without a
single relative on earth: nor could he be said to have a friend, even
among the dons. He rose early, took a solitary walk in the parks, and
would spend the rest of the day at his desk by the window. People
marvelled sometimes why he had taken Holy Orders. It was hinted that
his scout knew, perhaps; but, if so, his scout never divulged the
reasons.

The scholar was a man, nevertheless; had a humorously wrinkled mouth,
and an eye that twinkled responsive to a jest; and was the best judge of
wine in Oxford. On the strength of this undeniable gift the dons had
long since elected him steward of Common-room; and he valued the
responsibility, abstaining from tobacco--which he loved--to keep pure
his taste for vintages, and preserve a discriminating palate among
sweets. An utterance of his would hint that even his avoidance of
physical exercise was a matter of duty.

"A man," he said, "may work his body, may work his head, and may enjoy
his dinner. Any two of these things he may do, but not all three.
For me, I wish to work my head, and _must_ enjoy my dinner." And once,
when I dined with him, it was made clear to me that his life was ordered
after a plan. It was a summer evening, and he held a glass of claret
against the sunset. "Wife and children!" he cried suddenly, "wife and
children!" Then, with a wave of his left hand from the claret to the
still lawn below us and the lilacs, "These are my wife and children!"

It was whispered at length that his commentary on the first book of the
Deipnosophists was all but ready. All through a golden summer and a
quiet Long Vacation it had been maturing, and on the first night of the
October term he arranged his piles of notes about him, set a quire of
clean manuscript paper on his table, dipped pen in inkpot, and began to
muse on the first sentence.

An hour passed, and the page was not soiled. Across the still garden
came