It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy.”
“Carminative,” said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully.
“Carminative,” Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. “Words,” said Denis at last, “words—I wonder if you can realise how much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to the name ‘Margot’ seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. Mallarmé’s envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave you pitiful; you can’t see that
‘Apte à ne point te cabrer, hue!
Poste et j’ajouterai, dia!
Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue
Balzac, chez cet Hérédia,’
is a little miracle.”
“You’re right,” said Mr. Scogan. “I can’t.”
“You don’t feel it to be magical?”