Before long, unconsciously seeking familiar solitudes, I found myself on the way to the little coppice where some days ago I had seen Hesperus above the departed sun, and Isaiah had shed on me the influence of his promise of peace. “Now,” said I sadly to myself, “I have with me a book that calls itself the fulfilment of that promise. But it fulfils nothing for me.” As I spoke, and drew the book from the folds of my garment, several pieces of paper fell on the ground. When I picked them up, I found—what I had completely forgotten—Glaucus’s “scrawls.” I thought they would contain some requests to perform commissions for him in Nicopolis, or to convey messages to friends, and that he might have written these in the lecture-room when he expected to hear news that might call him suddenly away. But they were something quite different. The first that I opened was entitled “A Postscript,” written in verse, rallying me upon my advice about “waiting.” It shewed me how Glaucus, too, had been affected, not only by the lecture that drove him from the room, but also by that saying of Epictetus concerning Zeus (“He would have if he could have”) which had disturbed me so much. It was wildly written as Glaucus himself confessed: but I will give it here, because—besides being a rebuke to me, and to all teachers that preach a gospel they do not feel—it shews how Epictetus himself, the perfection of honesty, stirred up in an honest and truthful pupil questionings and doubts that he could not satisfy or silence: _POSTSCRIPT._ _If you, my Silanus_ _(Who think hopelessness heinous,_ _And lectured me lately_ _So sweetly, sedately._ _Discussing, dilating,_ _I will not say “prating,”_ _On the great use of waiting,_ _You, whom I respected_ _But never suspected,_ _Never, no never,_ _Of being so clever)_ _Would but do your endeavour_ _To find more rhymes for “ever,”_ _Then cease would I never_ _But rhyme on for ever,_ _Like that horrible lecture,_ _Our Master’s conjecture,_ _About Zeus, a kind creature,_ _Whose principal feature_ _Was his frankly regretting_ _That the Fates keep upsetting,_ _By their cruel preventions,_ _His noble intentions;_ _“’Tis not that I would not,_ _But I could not, I could not,”_ _So said Zeus in a lecture_ _Our Master’s conjecture._ _P.S. Mad, isn’t it? But isn’t the lecture madder?_ _P.P.S. I do hope and trust the Master is mad. I must go out._