More rarely one comes across a man who, being the fortunate possessor of a truly wonderful memory, is enabled to retain the bulk of the information which he has acquired by wide reading. There is a story told of a certain don at one of our older universities who, being possessed of an insatiable thirst for knowledge coupled with an excellent memory and an inexhaustible capacity for work, passed as a well-read if not a very learned man. There seemed to be few topics upon which he could not discourse on equal terms even with those who had made that subject their own.
Now it happened that there were two young Fellows at the same college who, wearied of his constant superiority in conversation, determined to take Brown (for such was his name) 'down a peg or two.' So each night at dinner in hall they skilfully turned the conversation to unusual topics, hoping to light upon some chink in the redoubtable Brown's intellectual armour. Once they tried him on the rarer British hemipterous homoptera, but soon discovered that he was a very fair entomologist. Next evening the conversation veered to ancient Scandinavian burial rites, but here again he could give them points. The Byzantine coinage of Cyprus was, of course, well known to him while he had himself worked on the oolitic foraminifera of the blue marl at Biarritz. His experiments on the red colouring matter of _drosera rotundifolia_ had formed the subject of a monograph, and he was particularly interested in the hagiological folk-lore of Lower Brittany.
It seemed almost hopeless. Try as they would they could find no subject with which he was unacquainted. Every night some fresh outlandish topic was introduced. Brown looked very bored, and proceeded to tell them all there was to be said upon the subject. But one night a casual remark put them on the right track. Someone happened to ask Brown a question about Indian music. He answered shortly, and remarked that it was a subject upon which a good deal of work was yet to be done. The conspirators looked across the table at each other, left the common-room early, and retired to Jones's rooms.
'Yes,' said Smith; 'he evidently doesn't know much about oriental music.'
'But he will by to-morrow,' replied the astute Jones. 'As soon as ever he gets to his rooms to-night, he'll read up everything he possibly can on Indian music, and he'll continue in the Library to-morrow. By dinner-time he'll be stuffed full of tom-toms and shawms and dulcimers, or whatever they play in India.'