will filter the sunlight upon your open book,

Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Lastly, in certain of the rooms smoking is permitted; some bygone
trustee--may earth lie lightly on him!--having discovered and taught
that of all things a book is about the most difficult to burn.
You may smoke in 'Paradise,' for instance. By this name, for what
reason I cannot tell, is known the room containing the Greek and
Latin classics.

Brother Copas, entering Paradise with a volume under his arm, found
Mr. Simeon seated there alone with a manuscript and a Greek lexicon
before him, and gave him good evening.

"Good evening, Brother Copas! . . . You have been a stranger to us
for some weeks, unless I mistake?"

"You are right. These have been stirring times in politics, and for
the last five or six weeks I have been helping to save my country, at
the Liberal Club."

Mr. Simeon--a devoted Conservative--came as near to frowning as his
gentle nature would permit.

"You disapprove, of course," continued Brother Copas easily.
"Well, so--in a sense--do I. We beat you at the polls; not in
Merchester--we shall never carry Merchester--though even in
Merchester we put up fight enough to rattle you into a blue funk.
But God help the pair of us, Mr. Simeon, if our principles are to be
judged by the uses other men make of 'em! I have had enough of my
fellow-Liberals to last me for some time. . . . Why are you studying
Liddell and Scott, by the way?"

"To tell the truth," Mr. Simeon confessed, "this is my fair copy of
the Master's Gaudy Sermon. I am running it through and correcting
the Greek accents. I am always shaky at accents."

"Why not let me help you?" Brother Copas suggested. "Upon my word,
you may trust me. I am, as nearly as possible, impeccable with Greek
accents, and may surely say so without vanity, since the gift is as
useless as any other of mine."

Mr. Simeon, as we know, was well aware of this.

"I should be most grateful," he confessed, in some compunction.
"But I am not sure that the Master--if you will excuse me--would care
to have his sermon overlooked. Strictly speaking, indeed, I ought
not to have brought it from home: but with six children in a very
small house--and on a warm evening like this, you understand--"

"I once kept a private school," said Brother Copas.

"They are high-spirited children, I thank God." Mr. Simeon sighed.
"Moreover, as it happene