“’Hoc nemus umbriferum pingit viridissima Rutae
    Silvula coeruleae, foliis quae praedita parvis,
    Umbellas jaculata brevis, spiramina venti
    Et radios Phoebi caules transmittit ad imos,
    Attactuque graves leni dispergit odores,
    Haec cum multiplici vigeat virtute medelae,
    Dicitur occultis apprime obstare venenis,
    Toxicaque invasis incommoda pellere fibris.’

“Now, can anything be more charming?  True it is that pingit in the first line does not seem to construe satisfactorily, and I am not certain that the poet may not have written fingit.  Fingit would not be pure Latin, but that is beside the question.”

“Indeed it is.  I must say I prefer the Georgics.  I have known many strange tastes, but your fancy for bad Latin is the strangest of all.”

“Classical Latin, with the exception of Tacitus, is cold-blooded and self-satisfied.  There is no agitation, no fever; to me it is utterly without interest.”

To the books and manuscripts the pictures on the walls afforded an abrupt contrast.  No. 1.  “A Japanese Girl,” by Monet.  A poppy in the pale green walls; a wonderful macaw!  Why does it not speak in strange dialect?  It trails lengths of red silk.  Such red!  The pigment is twirled and heaped with quaint device, until it seems to be beautiful embroidery rather than painting; and the straw-coloured hair, and the blond light on the face, and the unimaginable coquetting of that fan....

No. 2.  “The Drop Curtain,” by Degas.  The drop curtain is fast descending; only a yard of space remains.  What a yardful of curious comment, what satirical note on the preposterousness of human existence! what life there is in every line; and the painter has made meaning with every blot of colour!  Look at the two principal dancers!  They are down on their knees, arms raised, bosoms advanced, skirts extended, a hundred coryphees are clustered about them.  Leaning hands, uplifted necks, painted eyes, scarlet mouths, a piece of thigh, arched insteps, and all is blurred; vanity, animalism, indecency, absurdity, and all to be whelmed into oblivion in a moment.  Wonderful life; wonderful Degas!

No. 3.  “A Suburb,” by Monet.  Snow! the world is white.  The furry fluff has ceased to fall, and the sky is darkling and the night advances, dragging the horizon up with it like a heavy, deadly curtain.  But the roof of the villa is white, and the green of the laurels shaken free of the snow shines through the railings, and the shadows that lie across the road leading to town are blue—­yes, as blue as the slates under the immaculate snow.

No. 4.  “The Cliff’s Edge,” by Monet.  Blue? purple the sea is; no, it is violet; ’tis striped with violet and flooded with purple; there are living greens, it is full of fading blues.  The dazzling sky deepens as it rises to breathless azure, and the soul pines for and is fain of God.  White sails show aloft; a line of dissolving horizon; a fragment of overhanging cliff wild with coarse grass and bright with poppies, and musical with the lapsing of the summer waves.