He had been for a time Member of Parliament for one of the old Universities, and he was now engaged on a verse translation of certain books of the Odyssey.

That this particular labour had been undertaken before did not trouble him.

It was in fact his delight to feel himself a link in the chain of tradition--at once the successor and progenitor of scholars.

Not that his scholarship was anything illustrious or profound.

Neither as poet nor Hellenist would he ever leave any great mark behind him; but where other men talk of "the household of faith," he might have talked rather of "the household of letters," and would have seen himself as a warm and familiar sitter by its hearth.