At the British museum:

     I saw a lady try to describe and explain what the animals were on the gryphon bowl to a blind man. He was a sixty year old American with long grey hair and his dog smelled around the bird's lion-paws with half a mind at giving them a little polish. It was the most commonplace poetic thing I've witnessed in a long time. 

     I played hide and seek with a little girl in a long red coat all along the Enlightenment Room (to which I'm quite partial, especially during the last minutes before they close down the museum). I think I won.

     A grandfather from India, trying to pose with three of the Nereids, sat on my back and didn't move until the picture was taken.

     An old lady took to talking to me in Brazilian and was quite surprised that I understood her. I'm not very sure why she was speaking in Brazilian to a presumed Englishman. She was very friendly and introduced me to her daughter after that and I wished her happy travelling, which is really the second best thing somebody can wish on anybody else, I think. She was just starting a Classical Tour, like the Innocents of Twain's time. She was happy to be visiting Paris but absolutely hysterical about going to Rome where she was going to see the Pope. I didn't mention the man's nationality. It seemed like the politest way to go about.

     I thought I was going to be attacked by an escaped wild ram. I wasn't.

 Horary by Frederick Muller, Enligthenment Room

Gryphon Bowl, Enlightenment Room

 

What I thought was going to happen, but didn't.