I met another classical scholar under very pitiful circumstances. He, too, had been picked up in the street by a policeman whilst holding communion with great minds. He gave no name and no address, and no one knew anything about him. When I saw him first he was crouching in a corner of the prisoners’ room among a lot of coarse men and vicious women. He was a splendid-looking fellow and well-dressed. When I spoke to him, he said: ‘Water.’ I got some for him, and he emptied the can. He then stood up, and raising his hands and eyes, as if in invocation, he said: ‘O heavenly Muse, inspire me now!’ And the inspiration came. For two hours he perambulated that room, and an unbroken stream of words flowed from him. Such language and such utterance I had never listened to, beautiful thoughts in beautiful language; now tender and soft, now declamatory and full of passion. Action and utterance were perfect, as on and on he went. The vicious women and coarse men looked at him in wonder; the police looked on, and did not know what to make of him; I stood and listened and looked as on and on he went, now in English, now in languages that I did not understand, and anon dropping into Scotch; the action of his hands and the play of his features were perfect. I could almost understand his unknown tongues. He was taken before the magistrate, and in the dock the stream of words flowed on; he was oblivious of everything and everybody but his poets. He was taken by the policeman to the workhouse, and the stream rolled on. After a few days I went up to the workhouse to see him, but he had taken his discharge, and was gone. One couplet I remember he uttered, and it describes him to me-- ‘Like a snowflake on a river, Seen a moment, gone for ever’-- for I have never seen him since, and I never learned who he was or whence he came.