scarcely keep from laughing at the look of perplexity and indignation in Tullus’s face when he quoted Propertius’s reply.  The boy actually asked them if they thought the poor flute ought to be set adrift just because swelled cheeks weren’t becoming to Pallas!  The long and short of it is that he wants me to interfere, and convince Propertius of his public duty.  That public duty may conceivably take the form of writing poetry is beyond his grasp.”

Horace laughed.  “Now, my difficulty,” he said, “is just the reverse.  I object to this young man because he is a bad poet.”

“Why?” Maecenas asked, rather abruptly.

“Because,” Horace answered, “he contorts the Latin language and muddies his thought by Alexandrian debris.”

Maecenas reached for the silver ladle and slowly filled his cup once more from the mixing-bowl before replying.  Then he said in a more serious tone than he had used hitherto:—­

“If you will allow me to say so, Flaccus, that is a cheap criticism to come from the keenest critic in Rome.  Is it not possible that you are misled by your personal prejudices?  You dislike the young man himself, I know, because he is moody and emotional and uncontrolled, and because he considers his own emotions fit subjects for discussion.  A boy, self-centred, melancholy, and in love—­what do you want of him?”

“Is that quite fair?” Horace answered.  “Tibullus is young and in love, and a very Heracleitus for melancholy, and you know that I not only love him as a friend but also value him as a poet, in spite of my belief that elegiac verse is not a fortunate medium for our language.  His Latin is limpid and direct, his metre is finished, and his emotion as a lover is properly subordinated to his work as a poet.”

“Ah,” said Maecenas quickly, “but just there you betray yourself.”  He hesitated a moment and then went on as if the words were welling up from reluctant depths in his own experience.  “Flaccus, you have never loved a woman, have you?”

Horace smiled whimsically.  “Not to the extent of surrendering my standards,” he said.  “So far Mercury has always rescued me in time from both Mars and Venus.”

But Maecenas went on gravely, “You are, then, incapacitated for appreciating the force and fervour of a certain kind of genius.  I know that you have never understood Catullus, and I have a feeling that something of his spirit is reappearing in this boy to-day.  If Propertius lacks his virility and directness, that may well be because of a heart in which there is a stormier conflict of emotions.  Certainly his passion transcends the vivacious sentiment of poor Gallus.  I tell you, my wary critic, I am almost willing to believe that through this silly young dandy we are getting a new voice in our literature.  Who knows? who knows?  It is un-Roman, yes, incoherent and moody and subversive of law and order, but is it false to human life?  A man may choose to dwell apart with his own heart rather than with Lucretius’s science or Virgil’s nature, or your own practical philosophy.  Certain lines that this boy has written haunt me—­perhaps they will prove true:—­