A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



complacent defiance, did not quite dispel a feeling 

 in the class that there was an aching void in the 

 rhetoric. You know how a class of quick instinc 

 tive young minds will be annoyed by a galloping 

 sophism that they cannot put their fingers on. 

 It is like that one mosquito that blows his small 

 but mellow horn in the dark, and you slap the 

 wrong place and wish you might see him. A 

 rather stupid and vacuous silence fell on the class, 

 as if the professor had straggled into moonshine, 

 but nobody could tell how or where. Then up 

 rose Bannister, dear old Bannister he who had 

 not only translated but interpreted the Fourth 

 Eclogue of Virgil between prayers and praxis, 

 as easily, so it seemed to us dullards, as he had 

 feathered a stroke oar. His handsome face wore 

 the livery of outdoors. His brown eye flashed 

 a little with the light that comes regularly on land 

 and sea. He was one of those intuitional fellows 

 who occasionally rush past facts to a truth. He 

 was continually arriving by cutting across lots. 

 He was made up of moods of indifference and 

 moments of inspiration. As he stood there 

 fumbling his text-book of biology and feeling 

 after words to express himself, I was fresh and 

 imaginative enough to believe on the moment 

 that he was the voice that we had all lost. 



&quot;On behalf of insignificant man,&quot; he said, &quot;of 

 whom I am the most insignificant example, I beg 

 to put in a disclaimer, and with all respect to Dr. 

 Draper to protest against this method of measur 

 ing the value of things by the distance at which 



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