Page:Crotchet Castle - Peacock (1831).djvu/161

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SCIENCE AND CHARITY.
149

for science of the only friend he had in the world." "Aye, my dear," he resumed, the next morning at breakfast, "if my old reading and my early gymnastics, (for as the great Hermann says, before I was demulced by the Muses, I was ferocis ingenii puer, et ad arma quam ad literas paratior,[1]) had not imbued me indelibly with some of the holy rage of Frère Jean des Entommeures, I should be, at this moment, lying on the table of some. flinty-hearted anatomist, who would have sliced and disjointed me as unscrupulously as I do these remnants of the capon and chine, wherewith you consoled yourself yesterday for my absence at dinner. Phew! I have a noble thirst upon me, which I will quench with floods of tea."

  1. "A boy of fierce disposition, more inclined to arms than to letters."—Hermann's Dedication of Homer's Hymns to his Preceptor Ilgen.