e open air, with the
scent of the beanfields, mingling with the cloud of incense."

"But I thought you denied any value to the external world, that the
spirit alone was worth considering."

"The antique world knew how to idealise, and if they delighted in the
outward form, they did not leave it gross and vile as we do when we
touch it; they raised it, they invested it with a sense of aloofness
that we know not of. Flesh or spirit, idealise one or both, and I will
accept them. But you do not know the book. You must read it. Never did I
read with such rapture of being, of growing to spiritual birth. It
seemed to me that for the first time I was made known to myself; for the
first time the false veil of my grosser nature was withdrawn, and I
looked into the true ethereal eyes, pale as wan water and sunset skies,
of my higher self. Marius was to me an awakening; the rapture of
knowledge came upon me that even our temporal life might be beautiful;
that, in a word, it was possible to somehow come to terms with life....
You must read it. For instance, can anyone conceive anything more
perfectly beautiful than the death of Flavian, and all that youthful
companionship, and Marius' admiration for his friend's poetry?... that
delightful language of the third century--a new Latin, a season of
dependency, an Indian summer full of strange and varied cadences, so
different from the monotonous sing-song of the Augustan age; the school
of which Fronto was the head. Indeed, it was Pater's book that first
suggested to me the idea of the book I am writing. But perhaps you do
not know I am writing a book.... Did my mother tell you anything about
it?"

"Yes; she told me you were writing the history of Christian Latin."

"Yes; that is to say, of the language that was the literary, the
scientific, and the theological language of Europe for more than a
thousand years."

And talking of his book rapidly, and with much boyish enthusiasm, John
opened the doors of the refectory. The long, oaken tables, the great
fireplace, and the stained glass seemed to delight him, and he alluded
to the art classes of monastic life. The class-rooms were peeped into,
the playground was viewed through the lattice windows, and they went to
John's room, up a staircase curiously carpeted with lead.

John's rooms! a wide, bright space of green painted wood and straw
matting. The walls were panelled from floor to ceiling. In the centre of
the floor there was an oa