Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

of a debate, and kindle it with magic joy or freeze it with scorn implacable. D . . . , his expression no- ble and commanding, yet sly, as if ever ready to laugh at the intricacies of his own intellect, sat next to him, his deep and wondrous eyes lit with strange light, while with words like burning flames of steel he shore asunder the sophistries of one, the complacencies of another. They were feared, these two ! There also did he meet the well known ethicist, I . . . , fair as a boy, with boy’s golden locks curling about his Grecian head ; I . . . , the pure and subtle-minded student, whose lively hu- mour and sparkling sarcasm were as froth upon the deep and terrible waters of his polished irony. It was a pity that he drank. There the great surgeon, and true gentleman, in spite of his exag- gerated respect for the memory of Queen Victoria, J . . . , would join in with his ripe and generous wit. Handsome as a god, with yet a spice of devil’s laughter lurking there, he would sit and enjoy the treasures of the conversation, adding at the proper interval his own rich quota of scholarly jest. Needless to say, so brilliant a galaxy attracted all the false lights of the time. T . . . , the braggart, the mediocre painter, the lusty soi-disant ma- quereau of marchionesses, would seek admission (which was in theory denied to none). But the cut- ting wit of C . . . drove him headlong, as if by the Cherubim, from the Gates of the Garden of Eden. G . . . , the famous society painter, came one night, and was literally hounded out of the room by a swift and pitiless attack on the part of D . . . and the young ethicist. A bullet-headed Yan- kee, rashly supporting him, shared the same fate, and ever after sat in solitary disgrace downstairs, like a whipped hound outside its master’s door. The subject of conversation did not mat- ter. A fool reveals himself, though he talk but of greasing gimlets, in such a fierce light as beat [8]