one of the northern windows of the street which commands our noble estuary,—­the view through which is a picture on an illimitable canvas and a poem in innumerable cantos,—­I have sometimes seen a pleasure-boat drifting along, her sail flapping, and she seeming as if she had neither will nor aim.  At her stern a man was laboring to bring her head round with an oar, to little purpose, as it seemed to those who watched him pulling and tugging.  But all at once the wind of heaven, which had wandered all the way from Florida or from Labrador, it may be, struck full upon the sail, and it swelled and rounded itself, like a white bosom that had burst its bodice, and—­

—­You are right; it is too true! but how I love these pretty phrases!  I am afraid I am becoming an epicure in words, which is a bad thing to be, unless it is dominated by something infinitely better than itself.  But there is a fascination in the mere sound of articulated breath; of consonants that resist with the firmness of a maid of honor, or half or wholly yield to the wooing lips; of vowels that flow and murmur, each after its kind; the peremptory b and p, the brittle k, the vibrating r, the insinuating s, the feathery f, the velvety v, the bell-voiced m, the tranquil broad a, the penetrating e, the cooing u, the emotional o, and the beautiful combinations of alternate rock and stream, as it were, that they give to the rippling flow of speech,—­there is a fascination in the skilful handling of these, which the great poets and even prose-writers have not disdained to acknowledge and use to recommend their thought.  What do you say to this line of Homer as a piece of poetical full-band music?  I know you read the Greek characters with perfect ease, but permit me, just for my own satisfaction, to put it into English letters:—­

          Aigle pamphanoosa di’ aitheros ouranon ike!

as if he should have spoken in our poorer phrase of

          Splendor far shining through ether to heaven ascending.

That Greek line, which I do not remember having heard mention of as remarkable, has nearly every consonantal and vowel sound in the language.  Try it by the Greek and by the English alphabet; it is a curiosity.  Tell me that old Homer did not roll his sightless eyeballs about with delight, as he thundered out these ringing syllables!  It seems hard to think of his going round like a hand-organ man, with such music and such thought as his to earn his bread with.  One can’t help wishing that Mr. Pugh could have got at him for a single lecture, at least, of the “Star Course,” or that he could have appeared in the Music Hall, “for this night only.”

—­I know I have rambled, but I hope you see that this is a delicate way of letting you into the nature of the individual who is, officially, the principal personage at our table.  It would hardly do to describe him directly, you know.  But you must not think, because the lightning zigzags, it does not know where to strike.