imagined as attainable, and yet one which, he insisted, was common in
the older civilization of Europe. It was this nettling comparison,
enforced by his mastery of difficulties, which first aroused the ardour
of his scholars. In less than a year they passed from the level of
youths in a high school to that of University students. On the best
heads his influence was magical. His learning and enthusiasm quickened
their reverence for scholarship, but it was his critical faculty which
opened to them the world of art, and nerved them to emulation.

"Until one realizes the shortcomings of a master," he said in a lecture,
"it is impossible to understand him or to take the beauty of his works
to heart. When Sophocles repeats himself--the Electra is but a feeble
study for the Antigone, or possibly a feeble copy of it--we get near the
man; the limitations of his outlook are characteristic: when he deforms
his Ajax with a tag of political partisanship, his servitude to
surroundings defines his conscience as an artist; and when painting by
contrasts he poses the weak Ismene and Chrysothemis as foils to their
heroic sisters, we see that his dramatic power in the essential was
rudimentary. Yet Mr. Matthew Arnold, a living English poet, writes that
Sophocles 'saw life steadily and saw it whole.' This is true of no man,
not of Shakespeare nor of Goethe, much less of Sophocles or Racine. The
phrase itself is as offensively out of date as the First Commandment."
The bold, incisive criticism had a singular fascination for his hearers,
who were too young to remark in it the crudeness that usually attaches
to originality.

Miss Hutchings was the first of the senior students to yield herself to
the new influence. In the beginning Miss Gulmore was not attracted by
Professor Roberts; she thought him insignificant physically; he was neat
of dress too, and ingenuously eager in manner--all of which conflicted