an
Stubbs made of those noble lines on the wife who hid her husband
from his foes.

_Splendide mendax et in omne virgo
Nobilis aevum_

One of the purest and stateliest tributes ever made to a woman.
(The lines might be roughly rendered "A magnificent liar and a noble
lady for all eternity"; but no translation can convey the
organ-voice of the verse, in which the two strong and lonely words
"noble" and "eternity" stand solitary for the last line.) In
consequence of my taking up the cudgels against a live Dean for the
manly moral sense of the dear old Epicurean, the office became
impressed with a vague idea that I know something about Latin
literature--whereas, as a matter of fact I have forgotten even the
line before the one I quoted. However, in the most confidential and
pathetic manner I was entrusted with doing with "Rome et l'Empire"
work which ought to be done by a scholar. . . .

2nd. Then there is Captain Webster. You ask (in gruff, rumbling
tones) "Who is Captain Webster?" I will tell you.

Captain Webster is a small man with a carefully waxed moustache and
a very Bond Street get up, living at the Grosvenor Hotel. Talking to
him you would say: he is an ass, but an agreeable ass, a humble,
transparent honourable ass. He is an innocent and idiotic butterfly.
The interesting finishing touch is that he has been to New Guinea for
four years or so, and had some of the most hideous and extravagant
adventures that could befall a modern man. His yacht was surrounded
by shoals of canoes full of myriads of cannibals of a race who file
their teeth to look like the teeth of dogs, and hang weights in their
ears till the ears hang like dogs' ears, on the shoulder. He held his
yacht at the point of the revolver and got away, leaving some of his
men dead on the shore. All night long he heard the horrible noise of
the banqueting gongs and saw the huge fires that told his friends
were being eaten. Now he lives in the Grosvenor Hotel. Captain
Webster finds the pen, not only mightier than the sword, but also
much more difficult. He has written his adventures and we are to
publish them and I am translating the honest captain into English
grammar, a thing which appals him much more than Papuan savages. This
means going through it carefully of course and rewriting many parts
of it, where relatives and dependent sentence