But the truth was that many of us were great readers of poetry; Bingham himself had been a writer of it, while as regards me (and the same thing might be said of my father), the correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was theoretically indifferent to it.

I disliked any sentiments in poetry which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal.
And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of educating the feelings.

But I was always personally very susceptible to some kinds of it.

In the most sectarian period of my Benthamism, I happened to look into Pope's _Essay on Man_, and, though every opinion in it was contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it acted on my imagination.

Perhaps at that time poetical composition of any higher type than eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a similar effect upon me: at all events I seldom gave it an opportunity.
This, however, was a mere passive state.