nd mostly
paralytic at that: and in short so long as I hold that the
Creator has an idea, of a man, so long shall I be sure that no
uneven specialist realises it. The real tragedy of the Library at
Alexandria was not that the incendiaries burned immensely, but
that they had neither the leisure nor the taste to discriminate.

VIII

The old schoolmaster whom I quoted just now goes on:

I believe, if the truth were known, men would be
astonished at the small amount of learning with which a
high degree of culture is compatible. In a moment of enthusiasm
I ventured once to tell my 'English set' that if they could
really master the ninth book of "Paradise Lost", so as to rise
to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its
beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue
of that alone, become highly cultivated men.... More and
more various learning might raise them to the same height
by different paths, but could hardly raise them higher.

Here let me interpose and quote the last three lines of that
Book--three lines only; simple, unornamented, but for every man
and every woman who have dwelt together since our first parents,
in mere statement how wise!

Thus they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, _but neither self-condemning;_
And of their vain contest appear'd no end.

A parent afterwards told me (my schoolmaster adds) that his son
went home and so buried himself in the book that food and sleep
that day had no attraction for him. Next morning, I need hardly
say, the difference in his appearance was remarkable: he had
outgrown all his intellectual clothes.

The end of this story strikes me, I confess, as rapid, and may be
compared with that of the growth of Delian Apollo in the Homeric
hymn; but we may agree that, in reading, it is not quantity so
much that tells, as quality and thoroughness of digestion.

IX

_What Does--What Knows--What Is...._

I am not likely to depreciate to you the value of _What Does,_
after spending my first twelve lectures up here, on the art and
practice of Writing, encouraging you to _do_ this thing which I
daily delight in trying to do: as God forbid that anyone should
hint a slightening word of what our sons and brothers are doing
just now, and doing for us! But Peace being the normal condition
of man's activity, I look around me for a vindication of what is
noblest in _What Does_ and am content with a passage