84 UNDER THE TREES. 



him. To many it never discovers itself at all, and 

 the languages which were dead at the beginning of 

 study are dead at the end ; but to those in whom 

 the instinct of scholarship is developed there comes 

 a day when Virgil lives as truly as he lived in 

 Dante s imagination, and, like Boccaccio, they light 

 a fire at his tomb which years do not quench. 



Who that has ever gone through the experience 

 will forget the hour when he discovered the Greeks 

 in Homer s pages, and felt for the first time the 

 grand impulse of that noble race stir his blood and 

 fill his brain with the far-reaching aspiration for a 

 life as rich as theirs in beauty, freedom, and 

 strength ! It is told of an English scholar that he 

 devoted his winters to the &quot; Iliad &quot; and his sum 

 mers to the &quot; Odyssey,&quot; reading each several times 

 every year. One could hardly reconcile such self- 

 indulgence with the claims of to-day on every 

 man s time and strength ; but I have no doubt all 

 Grecians have a secret envy for such a career. 

 The Old-World charm of the &quot; Odyssey &quot; is one of 

 the priceless possessions of every fresh student, 

 and to feel it for the first time is like discovering 

 the sea anew. It is, indeed, the Epic of the Sea ; 

 the only poem in all literature which gives the 

 breadth, the movement, the mighty sweep of sky 

 belted with stars, the unspeakable splendors of 

 sunrise and sunset, the grand, free life of the sea. 

 I would place the &quot; Odyssey &quot; in every collection 

 of modern books for the tonic quality that is in it. 



