"Unquestionably," Denis admitted.
"Of course!" cried Guy.
Miss Mallowcoid and Leonetta, however, who were not at all persuaded that they could excuse such a judge, looked stonily unconvinced.
"Well, then," said Lord Henry, "that shows we must seek the cause of this modern indifference to poetry elsewhere than in the inferiority of those who refuse to read it."
"Good!" cried the baronet, and Agatha, Vanessa, and Stephen cheered.
"The question is," Lord Henry continued, "why is poetry not read to-day?"
"What is poetry, to begin with?" Vanessa demanded.
Everybody agreed that this was obviously the first thing to decide, and various definitions were given, none of which proved satisfactory. Denis Malster's definition which was: "Fine thoughts expressed in rhythmic order, and sometimes rhymed," was rejected by Lord Henry.
"You must get out of your mind altogether, the idea that poetry is all exalted vapourings, and high-browed sublime blue steam!" he said. "Its most important characteristic is that it adopts a mnemonic form,—that is to say, the form you would instinctively cast words into if you wished to remember them."
This was generally agreed to.