"'Ow can people read the stuff?" he pursued.
"I can't read it," said Stephen, "because it entirely fails to interest me."
"I can't read it," Agatha declared, "because it all seems to me mere beautiful words."
"Chiefly archaic!" added Stephen.
"I never read it," Vanessa observed, "because you have to wade through such quantities of stuff before you can find anything worth remembering."
Miss Mallowcoid, Leonetta, Guy, and Denis laughed.
"I tell them there's something lacking in them," snapped Miss Mallowcoid, looking as unlike a poetical muse as it was possible to be.
Lord Henry turned to Denis. "You hear what they have said?" he enquired.
"Yes, they've been repeating that the whole morning," Denis rejoined.
"Their voices are at least those of sincerity," said Lord Henry. "Neither can you say they are exceptionally ill-favoured human beings. Without wishing to cast any aspersions on you, Miss Mallowcoid, Leonetta, and Guy, I think an impartial judge might be excused if he regarded your opponents as at least as intelligent as yourselves."