John, sitting in his book–room, had got an apron tucked well under his rosy chin—an apron with two pockets in it, and the strings in a bow at the back of his neck; and he trembled for his ear–lobes, whenever he forgot his subject. Around him, with perpetual clatter, snip and snap and stirabout, hovered, like a Jewish maiden fingering the mill–stone, who but his Eudoxia?
In her strong right hand was a pair of shears, keen as those of Atropos, padded at the handles, lest to hurt the thumb, but the blades, the trenchant edges—oh what should keep their bright love asunder? No human ear, for a moment; nay, nor the nose of a mortal. Neither was this risk and tug, and frequent fullersʼ–teaseling, the whole or even the half of the agony John was undergoing. For though he sat with a pile of books heaped in fair disorder round him—though three were pushing about on his lap, dusting themselves on his well–worn kersey, like sparrows on a genial highway—though one was even perched on his right hand and another on his left, yet he had no more fruition of them (save in the cud of memory) than had Prometheus of his fire–glow in the frost of Strobilus, or than the son of Jove and Pluto, whom Ulysses saw, had of his dessert.
“Nay, then I looked at Tantalus having a rough tribulation,
Standing fast in a lake, and it came quite home to his chin–beard;
Nevertheless he stood thirsting, and had not to seize and to quaff it;
For every time when the old man would stoop in his longing to quaff it,
Then every time the water died, swallowed back, and at his ancles
Earth shone black in a moment, because a divinity parched it.
Trees as well, leafing loftily, over his head poured fruitage,
Pear–trees, and pomegranates, and apple–trees glittering–fruited,