stage in your agora! But in his papers--most kindly searched for me by
Mrs Verrall--no such design can be found. He was, in truth, a stricken
man when he came to the Chair, and of what he would have built we can
only be sure that, had it been this or had it been that, it would
infallibly have borne the impress of one of the most beautiful minds of
our generation. The gods saw otherwise; and for me, following him, I came
to a trench and stretched my hands to a shade.

For me, then, if you put questions concerning the work of this Chair, I
must take example from the artist in Don Quixote, who being asked what he
was painting, answered modestly, 'That is as it may turn out.' The course
is uncharted, and for sailing directions I have but these words of your
Ordinance:

It shall be the duty of the Professor to deliver courses of lectures
on English Literature from the age of Chaucer onwards, and otherwise
to promote, so far as may be in his power, the study in the
University of the subject of English Literature.

And I never even knew that English Literature had a 'subject'; or,
rather, supposed it to have several! To resume:

The Professor shall treat this subject on literary and critical
rather than on philological and linguistic lines:

--a proviso which at any rate cuts off a cantle, large in itself, if not
comparatively, of the new Professor's ignorance. But I ask you to note
the phrase 'to promote, so far as may be in his power, the study'--not,
you will observe, 'to teach'; for this absolves me from raising at the
start a question of some delicacy for me, as Green launched his