Questions which can only be answered by the parrotings of a memory crammed to disease with all sorts of heterogeneous diet can form no test of genius, taste, judgment, or natural capacity. Competitive Examination takes for its _norma_: 'It is better to learn many things ill than one thing well'; or rather: 'It is better to learn to gabble about everything than to understand anything.' This is not the way to discover the wood of which Mercuries are made. I have been told that this precious scheme has been borrowed from China: a pretty fountain-head for moral and political improvement: and if so, I may say, after Petronius: 'This windy and monstrous loquacity has lately found its way to us from Asia, and like a pestilential star has blighted the minds of youth otherwise rising to greatness.'{1} 1 Nuper ventosa isthaec et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia commigravit, animosque juvenum, ad magna surgentes, veluti pestilenti quodam sidere afflavit. _Lord Curryfin._ There is something to be said on behalf of applying the same tests, addressing the same questions, to everybody. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I shall be glad to hear what can be said on that behalf. Lord Curryfin (after a pause). 'Mass,' as the second grave-digger says in _Hamlet_, 'I cannot tell.' A chorus of laughter dissolved the sitting. CHAPTER XX ALGERNON AND MORGANA--OPPORTUNITY AND REPENTANCE--THE FOREST IN WINTER Les violences qu'on se fait pour s'empêcher d'aimer sont souvent plus cruelles que les rigueurs de ce qu'on aime. --La Rochefoucauld. The winter set in early. December began with intense frost. Mr. Falconer, one afternoon, entering the inner drawing-room, found Miss Gryll alone. She was reading, and on the entrance of her visitor, laid down her book. He hoped he had not interrupted her in an agreeable occupation. 'To observe romantic method,' we shall give what passed between them with the Christian names of the speakers. _Morgana._ I am only reading what I have often read before, _Orlando Innamorato_; and I was at the moment occupied with a passage about the enchantress from whom my name was borrowed. You are aware that enchantresses are in great favour here. _Algernon._ Circe and Gryllus, and your name, sufficiently show that. And not your name only, but----I should like to see the passage, and should be still better pleased if you would read it to me. _Morgana._ It is where Orlando, who had left Morgana sleeping by the fountain, returns to seek the enchanted key, by which alone he can liberate his friends. Il Conte, che d' intrare havea gran voglia, Subitamente al fonte ritornava: Quivi trovô Morgana, che con gioglia Danzava intorno, e danzando cantava. Ne pui leggier si move al vento foglia Come ella sanza sosta si voltava, Mirando hora a la terra ed hora al sole; Ed al suo canto usa va tal parole: