A warm July evening was coming to an end, bathing the area in the vibrant colors of its lively inks. The sky was only lightly bordered by fluffy clouds that moved quietly in the upper air. In the fields, the farmers were busy, herds grazed on the slopes of the hills and among the green deciduous trees. The song of the shepherds competed with the fluttering notes of a lark, which sank deeper and deeper into the blue chalice of the sky that hung over the earth, invisible to the eye. From a window of the schoolhouse in Harrow, a boy watched this gentle decline of the day with displeasure, his thoughts directed towards entirely different matters. He sat at his writing desk, Greek dictionaries and grammars opened before him, their white edges scribbled with figures, trees, and other unnecessary doodles.