"There would be compensation here for anything New York could offer," said Utterly, without meaning it in the least. "This peaceful Attic flavor"--with a gesture toward the green trees and the smooth lawn and Dr. Lister's canna beds--"makes one feel that after all some persons and some places do arrive at serenity. We never do in New York. We don't know what serenity is." Then Utterly descended from the pedestal upon which Dr. Lister had for the moment established him. He added a "don't you know" to his sentence. "We don't know what serenity is, don't you know." The phrase was still not common property in America, but it offended Dr. Lister's ear.
"I listened with great pleasure to your boys and girls, especially to the playing of your own boy--I believe it was your son who played the organ?"
"I stood at the campus gate and watched your peaceful procession with envy and I might say with awe. I felt that it wasn't real. I seemed to have stepped back just about two thousand years. You ought to keep it forever as a spectacle. Pilgrimages ought to be made here, not by train, but on foot. Everything in the world is changing--you have something that is old. I couldn't help thinking of 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,' and so forth, don't you know?"
Dr. Lister shifted his knees so that the one which had been uppermost was now beneath the other. Who was this strange, bearded, sentimental youth, robed like the lilies, who quoted poetry at first acquaintance? Dr. Lister read poetry, but he did not quote it to men whom he did not know. He wished that the young man, still running eloquently on about the Attic scene, would state his errand and go. He thought longingly of his couch in the cool study.
Then, in the still afternoon, thus far so like any other Commencement afternoon, he was startled out of all sleepiness.
"It is difficult to understand how Basil Everman with such an environment could have looked so keenly and seeingly at the grimmer side of life."
"I said that it is difficult to understand how Basil Everman, with such an environment as this in his youth, could have presented so completely a side of life so grim and terrible."
"_Basil Everman!_" repeated Dr. Lister. Still he could not believe that he had heard aright. He had been sleepy and he had misunderstood.