But, to be sure, you have the resource of verse-making, and that seems a very pleasant and absorbing occupation to those who practise it,--from our old friend Horace, kneading laboured Alcaics into honey in his summer rambles among the watered woodlands of Tibur, to Cardinal Richelieu, employing himself on French rhymes in the intervals between chopping off noblemen's heads.
It does not seem to signify much whether the verses be good or bad, so far as the pleasure of the verse-maker himself is concerned; for Richelieu was as much charmed with his occupation as Horace was, and his verses were certainly not Horatian." "Surely at your age, sir, and with your evident education--" "Say culture; that's the word in fashion nowadays." "Well, your evident culture, you must have made verses." "Latin verses, yes; and occasionally Greek.

I was obliged to do so at school.

It did not amuse me." "Try English." Kenelm shook his head.

"Not I.Every cobbler should stick to his last." "Well, put aside the verse-making: don't you find a sensible enjoyment in those solitary summer walks, when you have Nature all to yourself,--enjoyment in marking all the mobile evanescent changes in her face,--her laugh, her smile, her tears, her very frown!" "Assuming that by Nature you mean a mechanical series of external phenomena, I object to your speaking of a machinery as if it were a person of the feminine gender,--_her_ laugh, _her_ smile, etc.

As well talk of the laugh and smile of a steam-engine.