was there he caught the fever which held him
back on the eve of his departure for Greece
and of which he lay ill so long in Naples. He
was still, indeed, doing penance for it.

I remember vividly another evening, when
something led us to talk of Dante's veneration
for Virgil. Cleric went through canto after
canto of the "Commedia," repeating the dis-
course between Dante and his "sweet teacher,"
while his cigarette burned itself out unheeded
between his long fingers. I can hear him now,
speaking the lines of the poet Statius, who
spoke for Dante: _"I_was_famous_on_earth_with_
_the_name_which_endures_longest_and_honors_most._
_The_seeds_of_my_ardor_were_the_sparks_from_that_
_divine_flame_whereby_more_than_a_thousand_have_
_kindled;_I_speak_of_the_Aeneid,_mother_to_me_and_
_nurse_to_me_in_poetry."_

Although I admired scholarship so much in
Cleric, I was not deceived about myself; I
knew that I should never be a scholar. I could
never lose myself for long among impersonal
things. Mental excitement was apt to send
me with a rush back to my own naked land
and the figures scattered upon it. While I was
in the very act of yearning toward the new
forms that Cleric brought up before me, my

[[296]]

p295 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p296w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p297

v?