‘Anything so read would sound ill,’ she said. ‘I dare say it is all right about the faults, but some parts seem to me very pretty. This stanza, about the fishermen’s boats at night, like sparks upon the water, is one I like, because it is what John once described to me.’
‘You are right, Mrs. Martindale,’ said Percy, reading a second time the lines to which she alluded. ‘They do recall the evening scene; Mount Vesuvius and its brooding cloud, and the trails of phosphoric light upon the sea. I mark these for approval. But have you anything to say for this Address to the Mediterranean?’
He did not this time mar the poem in the reading, and it was not needed, the compound words and twisted epithets were so extravagant that no one gainsaid Arthur’s sentence, ‘Stilts and bladders!’
‘And all that abuse of the savage north is unpardonable,’ said Theodora. ‘Sluggish torpid minds, indeed, frozen by skies bound in mist belts! If he would stay at home and mind his own business, he would not have time to talk such nonsense.’
‘Now,’ said the still undaunted Violet, when the torrent of unsparing jest had expended itself, ‘now it is my turn. Let me show you one short piece. This—“To L.”’
It was an address evidently to his orphan sister, very beautiful and simple; and speaking so touchingly of their loneliness together and dependence on each other, that Mr. Fotheringham was overcome, and fairly broke down in the reading—to the dismay of Violet, who had little thought his feelings so easily excited.
‘Think of the man going and publishing it,’ said Theodora. ‘If I was Lady Lucy, I should not care a rush for it now.’
‘That is what you get by belonging to a poet,’ said Arthur. ‘He wears his heart outside.’
‘This came straight from the heart, at least,’ said Percy. ‘It is good, very good. I am glad you showed it to me. It would never do not to be candid. I will turn him over again.’
‘Well done, councillor,’ cried Arthur. ‘She has gained a verdict for him.’