"That is very remarkable," said Colonel Prowley, deeply impressed.

"I had no idea that these youths and maidens could justify their
eccentric proceedings by so high an authority," observed his sister.

The brother objected. He thought that the same effects could not rightly
be attributed to a modern song-writer and the Blind Old Poet.

"Blind Old Poet!" exclaimed one of the undergraduates, very
thoughtlessly. "Why, my dear Colonel Prowley, you are blinder than ever
he was! Don't you know that recent scholarship has demonstrated Homer to
be nobody in particular? The 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' are mere
agglomerations of the poetical effusions of a variety of persons; and
doubtless all of them could see as well as you and I can."

It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenly
clouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeable
publication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson?
Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightest
combination of literary and moral excellence which a mere modern could
produce,--had they not lived and died in respectable allegiance to the
Homeric personality? To say nothing of a mystical admiration of the
Greek hexameters which he could not construe, Colonel Prowley was a
diligent reader of Pope's sonorous travesty. He felt like some simple
believer in the divine right of kings, when the mob have broken into the
palace, and stand in no awe of the stucco and red velvet. Yes, of course
I admire original minds,--but then I love those which are not original.
And truly there was a stately echo about the old gentleman which always
went to my heart.