Mr. van Murphy startled me by asking me whether I was fond of Theocritus! For a moment I imagined it was a kind of cigarette, but just remembered in time that it was the name of a classical author, and said I had never been encouraged to read him, because in England it wasn’t thought proper for young girls. This was a desperate shot, but turned out to be a fortunate one; he quite understood. It seems that they read the classics out here with great avidity, and Greek forms part of their ordinary education! Mr. van Murphy continued to talk about Theocritus, seeing that the field was clear for him, and said he did not think he was as good as Longfellow, not so uplifting. I said I always felt uplifted by Longfellow. He said Lucretius was great stuff, but kind of old-fashioned: the man hadn’t got our advantages, scince being little studied in those times. He thought if Lucretius could come to life now a man like Jefferson could hand him the soap. I had no idea what he meant, so agreed feverishly. He said he had learnt scince pretty average when he was at the seminary, and thought it was a great thing for a boy; gave him a kind of scatter for things. I was feeling badly out of my depth (you know, Lady Poughkeepsie afterwards told me that the real high-class Americans don’t talk slang; “a man like Alge van Murphy, now, you couldn’t tell him from a Britisher by his talk”). I felt it was my turn to “come in” somehow, so (remembering my _Stories from the Aeneid_) I asked if Virgil was read much in American schools; I thought boys enjoyed it so much more if the books they read had a plot and a human interest. He said it was pretty generally considered in American circles that Virgilius P. Maro was the greatest man God ever. I turned in despair to the man on the other side. He turned out to be a Professor of philosophy, but was fortunately disinclined to talk shop. Indeed, for about twenty minutes on end he told me all about the points of all the Derby winners for the last ten years or so: they are a strange people....