Ben Jonson rose and followed a tall black figure that floated past down a cypress walk.
“By Jove!” I said, surprised into an indiscretion; “does he know how Tennyson always declared that he found reading Jonson was like wading through a sea of glue?”
And Carlyle answered—
“Alfred told him so to his beard, with customary frankness, and Ben laughed his great thunder laugh—like roll of an Elizabethan drum—and said, ‘My glue sticks, brother, my glue sticks. We shall see if thine holds on so stoutly to the literature of England after passage of centuries!’”
“Concerning Tennyson,” began Doctor Johnson, “we may take him first as to his machinery, so-called from θεὸς απὸ μηχανῆς, or the occasional interposition of supernatural power; next upon his episodes; and lastly as to his sentiments, as expressive of manners. Now, in so far as I am able to judge, the man, regarded as a moral——”
I felt Professor Parkinson pulling at my sleeve and together we stole away. Carlyle had already turned his back and departed.
“Won’t the Doctor be hurt?” I murmured.
“Not in the least,” replied my friend. “See! There goes Boswell to him.”
A jaunty shade tripped by us with his eyes reverently lifted to the Colossus of Words.
“Still at it, you see,” said the Professor.