“No,” said the author, “I think it would be more accurate to define it as a poem. It is cast in a kind of hexameter which yet is hardly a hexameter at all--at least it is not the metre of Homer and Virgil. You see, Jimmy, this noble and beautiful English speech which you and I use, differs greatly from those other beautiful tongues that the ancient authors worked in. At first I had thought to write this little treatise upon human life in the language of the Iliad, the language of heroic wisdom; but when I came to reflect that this noble modern speech of ours is familiar to more than a hundred million persons, I yielded my desire. Hence you will understand, Jimmy, that to modern eyes and ears the metre may at first appear strange.” “The deuce!” said Jimmy Dodson with a lively consternation. “A poem! That will make a difference. You see, Octavius declares that it is impossible for poetry to pay now-a-days--his pays, of course, but then he sticks to translations of Homer and the classics--and for years the firm has given up the publication of original verse. But it is too late, old boy, to go into it to-night. I will look at your novel--poem--better call it novel in any case--to-morrow evening, and then I may be able to give you some advice about it.” XLIX When at last Jimmy Dodson had gone to catch his train to Peckham, William Jordan, who still held the large pile of manuscript upon his knees, proffered it to his father, saying: “My father, I would have you read to me this little treatise upon human life.” The old man, who had not as yet looked upon the labours of his son, received the mass of papers from his hands; and in his peering, half-blind eyes was an extraordinary concentration. His feeble frame possessed by tremors, he sat down at the opposite side of the hearth to peruse that upon which he hardly dared to gaze. In the face of William Jordan, although there was a remarkable composure and self-security, there was also an expectation amounting almost to anguish, and in the great eyes, which no longer had lustre, there was the intentness that is seen in the eyes of the blind. As soon as the old man began to read in his weak quavering voice, his face, which was so bloodless and ascetic, broke out into a suffusion of stern and almost uncontrollable joy. The poet, who could not discern this remarkable expression, bent his head to listen; and as the roll and cadence of the lines he had wrought came upon his ears he drew in his breath sharply with half a sob and half a sigh. All through the night the aged man, his father, read aloud the poem in his weak quavering voice. As he did so, not he only, but the author of it sat with the inanimation of statues. They seemed neither to breathe nor to move; yet sometimes the tears would flow from the eyes of both. At other times every kind of emotion would pass across their faces: terror, joy, pity, laughter, bewilderment, protest, acceptance.