Now, ‘twere easy to call such men stupid (not even broaching the subjects of greedy, violent, arrogant, et cetera ), for there was something wilfully idiotic in going to an unknown country, ignoring its people, their languages, art, its beasts and butterflies, flowers, herbs, trees, ruins, et cetera, and reducing it all to a few lumps of heavy matter in the center of a dish. Yet as Daniel, in the tavern, tries to rake together his early memories of Trinity and of Cambridge, he's chagrined to find that a like process has been going on within his skull for half a century.