He began to read it precisely as he was accustomed to read books,--that is to say at the beginning and thence steadily onwards. "On the Death of a Young Lady" (Admiral Parker's daughter, explained a footnote); "To E----"; "To D----" and so on. There were seven hundred and eight pages of this kind of thing and Don Juan was at the end, in the five hundreds. When he had laboriously read thirty-six pages he decided that it was not a fine thing to read poetry, and he moved on to Don Juan, page five hundred and thirty-three. The rhymes surprised him. He had no idea that poetry--_poetry_--rhymed "annuities" with "true it is" and "Jew it is." He turned on and numbered the cantos,--sixteen; and then the number of verses in each canto and the total,--two thousand one hundred and eighty.... _Who-o-o!..._ It was as endless as the seven hundred and eight pages had appeared when he had staggered as far as page thirty-six. He began to hunt for the particular verses which had caused Don Juan to be recommended to him and presumably had caused his grandfather to carry out Byron with the tongs and burn him in the garden. He could not find them. He chucked the rotten thing. But as he was putting the rotten thing away, his eye happened upon two lines that struck into him--it was like a physical blow--the most extraordinary sensation: The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece Where burning Sappho loved and sung. He caught his breath. It was extraordinary. What the dickens was it? A vision of exquisite and unearthly and brilliantly coloured beauty seemed to be before his eyes. Islands, all white and green and in a sea of terrific blue.... And music, the thin note of distant trumpets.... Amazing! He read on. "Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung! Eternal Summer gilds them yet." Terrific, but not quite so terrific. And then again the terrific, the stunning, the heart-clutching thing. On a different note, with a different picture, coloured in grays. The mountains look on Marathon-- And Marathon looks on the sea. Music! The trumpets thinned away, exquisitely thin, tiny, gone! And high above the mountains and far upon the sea an organ shook. He said, "Well, I'm dashed!" and put the book away. V