A Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe

From Pharos and Pharillon by E.M. Forster.  Published in 1923.  The essay is The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy.

Modern Alexandria is scarcely a city of the soul.  Founded upon cotton with the concurrence of onions and eggs, ill built, ill planned, ill drained - many hard things can be said against it, and most are said by its inhabitants.  Yet to some of them, as they traverse the streets, a delightful experience can occur.  They hear their own name proclaimed in firm yet meditative accents - accents that seem not so much to expect an answer as to pay homage to the fact of individuality.  They turn and see a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe. His arms are extended, possibly. "Oh, Cavafy . . . !"  Yes, it is Mr. Cavafy, and he is going either from his flat to the office, or from his office to the flat.  If the former, he vanishes when seen, with a slight gesture of despair.  If the latter, he may be prevailed upon to begin a sentence - an immense com-plicated yet shapely sentence, full of parentheses that never get mixed and of reservations that really do reserve; a sentence that moves with logic to its foreseen end, yet to an end that is always more vivid and thrilling than one foresaw.  Sometimes the sentence is finished in the street, sometimes the traffic murders it, sometimes it lasts into the flat. 

It deals with the tricky behaviour of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus in 1096, or with olives, their possibilities and price, or with the fortunes of friends, or George Eliot, or the dialects of the interior of Asia Minor.  It is delivered with equal ease in Greek, English, or French.  And despite its intellectual richness and human outlook, despite the matured charity of its judgments, one feels that it too stands at a slight angle to the universe: it is the sentence of a poet.