The Heart of Arethusa

by Frances Barton Fox

She went through the pages again and again, but not once did the magic word she hunted greet her eyes. Then she went back to a paragraph in one of those chapters headed "Dinners," which had particularly attracted her attention.

"A Young Lady," so it ran, "should be thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the day and able to take part in an intelligent and lively way in conversation regarding the same with her fellow guests, most especially that member of the other sex next whom she may be seated at the festive board. In a manner of the proper reserve and deference to masculine opinion, she should endeavor to introduce topics that would promote animated and interested discussion among those nearest her, thus adding to the enjoyment of the party and assisting the efforts of her hostess to make the occasion prove an auspicious Event, which is one of the very first requirements of the true guest. It is well, also, before attending a dinner-party, where most of the evening's entertainment inevitably consists of conversation over the delicious viands, to be ready with thoughts formed for expression as opinions in regard to the polite arts; to be well-read in the current novels such as are proper for young females of good family to have read: for talk and discussion may often be led adroitly in such directions with pleasure and profit."

Here, Arethusa dropped the little book, bitterly disappointed, to look out of her window for awhile at the automobiles whirling past her down Lenox Avenue. She leaned her head against the window-casing and reviewed what she had read.

After all, there was nothing to help her very much. She knew scarcely anything about the affairs of the day. Miss Eliza had never allowed her to touch the only newspaper that came to the Farm, not considering her old enough. She had not the vaguest idea what the "polite arts" were, and as to the books she had read, she was very uncertain whether they might be called "current novels."

She picked up her book to read further and discovered that...

"Poetry may often be introduced with charm and effect. A few lines of verse, judiciously interspersed with the conversation; pearls of the thought of our great masters of the world of rhyme falling from the ruby lips of the young and fair daughters of Eve, have often caused a masculine heart to beat faster and to be thrown around the lovely borrower of words an atmosphere of gentle and refined erudition that nothing else could so well impart."

Arethusa brightened up. Here, she felt more at home.

She could certainly learn Poetry! In fact, she had no need to learn it, for she already knew quite a lot. She had read The Family Poetry Book through from cover to cover, a hundred times at least. It contained a great deal of Scott and Burns, and many long-delightful ballads such as "Lord Ullin's Daughter," and "The Cruel Sister," as well as Irish melodies that charmed with their plaintive atmosphere. England, however, had not been neglected, for the work of the Lake Poets held a prominent place, and there was much of Tennyson, his "May Queen" cycle, and "Sir Galahad." "The Prisoner of Chillon" was Arethusa's favorite of Byron's representation; she knew it from end to end. And she knew all of those specifically named off by heart, for the swinging lines of a ballad form were Arethusa's idea of what real poetry should be. But the compilers of the big brown book, which was sacred to the marble-topped center table in the parlor at the Farm, had not stayed entirely on the other side of the ocean; and so Arethusa could recite many of the verses of our own sweetest singers of that day; as well as many that were scattered throughout the book that were signed "Anonymous"; and many that had been written by dead and gone men and women whose very existence would have been forgotten by a fickle world, had not The Family Poetry Book preserved an imperishable record of their achievements.

"Yes," exulted Arethusa, "I know some Poetry!"

She read on, greatly cheered.