"Saepta armis _solioque alte subnixa_ resedit."

"_Alte! Alte!_" he screamed: "Dido sat on high: Aeneas stood at the
foot of her throne. Listen to this:--'Then Dido, bending down her
gaze . . . '"

He went on translating. A rapture took him, and the sun beat in
through the glass roof, and lit up his eyes. He was transfigured;
his voice swelled and sank with passion, swelled again, and then, at
the words--

"Quae te tam laeta tulerunt
Saecula? Qui tanti talem genuere parentes?"

It broke, the Virgil dropped from his hand, and sinking down on his
stool he broke into a wild fit of sobbing.

"Oh, why did I read it? Why did I read this sorrowful book?"
And then checking his sobs, he put a handkerchief to his mouth, took
it away, and looked up at me with dry eyes.

"Go away, little one, Don't come again: I am going to die very soon
now."

I stole out, awed and silent, and went home. But the picture of him
kept me awake that night, and early in the morning I dressed and ran
off to the glass-house.

He was still sitting as I had left him.