The Pelican - Page 2

the [Greek: ais] and [Greek: ois] that
she now and then not unskilfully let slip (correcting herself, of course,
with a start, and indulgently mistranslating the phrase), struck awe to
the hearts of ladies whose only "accomplishment" was French--if you didn't
speak too quickly.

I had then but a momentary glimpse of Mrs. Amyot, but a few months later I
came upon her again in the New England university town where the
celebrated Irene Astarte Pratt lived on the summit of a local Parnassus,
with lesser muses and college professors respectfully grouped on the lower
ledges of the sacred declivity. Mrs. Amyot, who, after her husband's
death, had returned to the maternal roof (even during her father's
lifetime the roof had been distinctively maternal), Mrs. Amyot, thanks to
her upper lip, her dimple and her Greek, was already esconced in a snug
hollow of the Parnassian slope.

After the lecture was over it happened that I walked home with Mrs. Amyot.
From the incensed glances of two or three learned gentlemen who were
hovering on the door-step when we emerged, I inferred that Mrs. Amyot, at
that period, did not often walk home alone; but I doubt whether any of my
discomfited rivals, whatever his claims to favor, was ever treated to so
ravishing a mixture of shyness and self-abandonment, of sham erudition and
real teeth and hair, as it was my privilege to enjoy. Even at the opening
of her public career Mrs. Amyot had a tender eye for strangers, as
possible links with successive centres of culture to which in due course
the torch of Greek art might be handed on.

She began by telling me that she had never been so frightened in her life.
She knew, of course, how dreadfully learned I was, and when, just as she
was going to begin, her hostess had whispered to her that I was in the
room, she had felt ready to sink through the floor. Then (with a flying
dimple) she had remembered Emerson's line--wasn't it Emerson's?--that
beauty is its own excuse for _seeing_, and that had made her feel a little
more confident, since she was sure that no one _saw_ beauty more vividly
than she--as a child she used to sit for hours gazing at an Etruscan vase
on the bookcase in the library, while her sisters played with their
dolls--and if _seeing_ beauty was the only excuse one needed for talking
about it, why, she was sure I would make allowances and not be _too_
critical and sarcastic, especially if, as she thought probable, I had
heard of her having lost her poor husband, and how she had to do it for
the baby.

Being abundantly assured of my sympathy on these points, she went on to
say that she had always wanted so much to consult me about her lectures.
Of course, one subject wasn't enough (this view of the