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“Victorians, Victorians, who never learned to weep

Who sowed the bitter harvest that your children go to reap——”

scribbled Amory in his note-book. The lecturer was saying something about Tennyson’s solidity and fifty heads were bent to take notes. Amory turned over to a fresh page and began scrawling again.

“They shuddered when they found what Mr. Darwin was about,

They shuddered when the waltz came in and Newman hurried out——”

But the waltz came in much earlier; he crossed that out.

“And entitled A Song in the Time of Order,” came the professor’s voice, droning far away. “Time of Order”—Good Lord! Everything crammed in the box and the Victorians sitting on the lid smiling serenely…. With Browning in his Italian villa crying bravely: “All’s for the best.” Amory scribbled again.

“You knelt up in the temple and he bent to hear you pray,

You thanked him for your ‘glorious gains’—reproached him for ‘Cathay.’”

Why could he never get more than a couplet at a time? Now he needed something to rhyme with: