the poorhouse, and enable his children to have a start in the world.  For one of his children a brilliant marriage might be provided—­if only he himself were out of the way.  How could he take himself out of the way?  It had been whispered to him that he might be imprisoned for two months—­or for two years.  Would it not be a grand thing if the judge would condemn him to be imprisoned for life?  Was thee ever a man whose existence was so purposeless, so useless, so deleterious, as his own?  And yet he knew Hebrew well, whereas the dean knew but very little Hebrew.  He could make Greek iambics, and doubted whether the bishop knew the difference between an iambus and a trochee.  He could disport himself with trigonometry, feeling confident that Dr Tempest had forgotten his way over the asses’ bridge.  He knew ‘Lycidas’ by heart; and as for Thumble, he felt quite sure that Thumble was incompetent of understanding a single allusion in that divine poem.  Nevertheless, though all his wealth of acquirement was his, it would be better for himself, better for those who belonged to him, better for the world at large, that he should be put an end to.  A sentence of penal servitude for life, without any trial, would be of all things the most desirable.  Then there would be ample room for the practice of the virtue that Hoggett had taught him.

When he returned home the Hoggethan doctrine prevailed, and he prepared to copy his letter.  But before he commenced his task, he sat down with his youngest daughter, and read—­or made her read to him—­a passage of a Greek poem, in which are described the troubles and agonies of a blind giant.  No giant would have been more powerful—­only that he was blind, and could not see to avenge himself on those who had injured him.  ’The same story is always coming up,’ he said, stopping the girl in her reading.  ’We have it in various versions, because it is true to life.

“Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.”

It is the same story.  Great power reduced to impotence, great glory to misery, by the hand of Fate—­Necessity, as the Greeks called her; to goddess that will not be shunned.  At the mill with slaves!  People, when they read it, do not appreciate the horror of the picture.  Go on my dear.  It may be a question whether Polyphemus had mind enough to suffer; but, from the description of his power, I should think he had.  “At the mill with slaves!” Can any picture be more dreadful than that?  Go on, my dear.  Of course you remember Milton’s Samson Agonistes.  Agonistes indeed!’ His wife was sitting stitching at the other side of the room; but she heard his words—­heard and understood them; and before Jane could again get herself into the swing of the Greek verse, she was over at her husband’s side, with her arms round his neck.  ‘My love!’ she said.  ‘My love!’

He turned to her, and smiled as he spoke to her.  ’These are old thoughts with me.  Polyphemus and Belisarius, and Samson and Milton, have always been pets of mine.  The mind of the strong blind creature must be sensible of the injury that he has been done to him!  The impotency, combined with the strength, or rather the impotency with the misery of former strength and former aspirations, is so essentially tragic!’