OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 

 Long could I talk about you, O my dear Mr. Gilchrist 

 you with the keen eyes and the vigorous hook nose 

 <always half-filled with snuff)/ with the flowing 

 beard of venerable threescore and ten, who 

 taught me to read " the classics " after 

 the English manner, i.e. 

 with a regard to quan- 

 tities / who, for the 

 modest and 

 evidently 

 much wanted 

 fee agreed 

 upon, gave me 

 <some- 



tuition 



daily at least five hours 

 times more) instead of 

 the stipulated three ! Hours, be it said, that went by lightly 

 enough in that queer, snuffy room, where we sat facing each 

 other on two straight-backed chairs eager boy and no less 

 eager old man. For, the Latin and Greek tasks over, there 

 always followed excursions, one more fascinating than the 

 other, into the deep and still unknown forest of English 

 letters. And such was the variety and the happy choice of 

 excerpts that, incredible as it may seem, the scholar of 

 fourteen was oftener sorry than elated to leave the garrulous 

 and enthusiastic mentor on his hill-top and return to the pa- 

 ternal house in the lower planes of the Champs Elysees, 

 An odd way of life for a youth, during those last few months 

 of spring and early summer in Paris ! It was full of glad 

 aspirations towards the future, it is true, but at the same 

 time not without an almost regretful enjoyment of the 

 present. The distribution of time was peculiar. There 

 was in it a kind of unconscious anticipation of that light- 

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