ting them down (or up, the poor fool imagines) as
Anglo-Saxons. In truth, King Alfred was a noble fellow. No one in
history has struggled more pluckily to rekindle fire in an effete
race or to put spirit into an effete literature by pretending that
both were of the prime."

"Come, come," murmured Mr. Simeon, smiling. "I see you are off upon
one of your hobbies. . . . But you will not tell me that the fine
rugged epic of _Beowulf_, to which the historians trace back all that
is noblest in our poetry, had lost its generative impulse even so
early as Alfred's time. That were too extravagant!"

"_Brekekekex, ten brink, ten brink!_" snapped Brother Copas.
"All the frogs in chorus around Charon's boat! Fine rugged
fiddlestick--have you ever read _Beowulf_?"

"In translation only."

"You need not be ashamed of labour saved. I once spent a month or
two in mastering Anglo-Saxon, having a suspicion of Germans when they
talk about English literature, and a deeper suspicion of English
critics who ape them. Then I tackled _Beowulf_, and found it to be
what I guessed--no rugged national epic at all, but a blown-out bag
of bookishness. Impulse? Generative impulse?--the thing is wind, I
tell you, without sap or sinew, the production of some conscientious
Anglo-Saxon whose blue eyes, no doubt, watered with the effort of
inflating it. I'll swear it never drew a human tear otherwise. . . .
That's what the whole Anglo-Saxon race had become when Alfred arose
to galvanise 'em for a while--a herd of tall, flabby, pale-eyed men,
who could neither fight, build, sing, nor enforce laws. And so our
England--wise as Austria in mating--turned to other nuptials and
married William the Norman. Behold then a new breed; the country
covered with sturdy, bullet-headed, energetic fellows, who are no
sooner born than they fly to work--hammers going, scaffolds climbing;
cities, cathedrals springing up by magic; and all to a new song that
came with some imported workmen from the Provence--"

'Quan la douss' aura venta
Deves vostre pays'--

"And so--pop!--down the wind goes your pricked bladder of a _Beowulf_:
down the wind that blows from the Mediterranean, whence the arts and
the best religions come."

Mr. Simeon rubbed the side of his jaw thoughtfully.

"Ah," said he, "I remember Master Blanchminster saying something of
the sort the other day. He was talking of wine."

"Yes--the best religions and the best wine: they go