He performed his capital ablutions with many loud 'poofs,' and a casting
up of dazzled eyes, an action that gave point to his recital of the
invocation of Chryses to Smintheus which brought upon the Greeks disaster
and much woe. Between the lines he replied to his wife, whose remarks
increased in quantity, and also, as I thought, in emphasis, under the
river of verse which he poured forth unbaffled, broadening his chest to
the sonorous Greek music in a singular rapture of obliviousness.
A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it, but will
keep the agitation of it down as long as he may. The simmering of humour
sends a lively spirit into the mind, whereas the boiling over is but a
prodigal expenditure and the disturbance of a clear current: for the
comic element is visible to you in all things, if you do but keep your
mind charged with the perception of it, as I have heard a great expounder
deliver himself on another subject; and he spoke very truly. So, I
continued to look on with the gravity of Nature herself, and I could not
but fancy, and with less than our usual wilfulness when we fancy things
about Nature's moods, that the Mother of men beheld this scene with half
a smile, differently from the simple observation of those cows whisking
the flies from their flanks at the edge of the shorn meadow and its
aspens, seen beneath the curved roof of a broad oak-branch.
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