The Iliad was being explained to us in class,—no doubt I would have loved it, but our master had made it odious¹ by his analysis, his difficult tasks and his parrot-like recitals;—but suddenly I stopped, filled with admiration² of a famous line, whose end is musical as the murmur³ of the waves of the incoming tide as they spread their sheets of foam⁴ upon the pebbly⁵ shore.  
“Observe,” said the Big Ape, “observe the inceptive harmony.”
 
Zounds! Yes, I had observed it. Little need to take the trouble to point out such a sentence to me.
 
I also had a great admiration, less justified⁶ perhaps, for some lines from Virgil.
 
Since the beginning of the Ecloque I had, with the greatest interest, followed the two shepherds as they made their way across the fields of ancient Rome. I could picture it to myself so vividly⁷, those Roman meadows of two thousand years ago: hot, a little sterile⁸, with thickets⁹ of almost petrified¹⁰ shrubs¹¹, and evergreen¹² oaks like the stony¹³ moorland of Limoise, ............