"Yes—at the bookseller's."
"But surely you have read it."
"No, I am behind the age."
"Then thank Heaven for it," exclaimed his unceremonious cousin; "for of all insipidity, and affectation, and fine-spun, wire-drawn trash, Tennyson carries away the palm. Every body reads him because he is the fashion, and every body admires him because he is the fashion. But he is a bubble, a film, a gossamer; there's nothing in him."
This explosion called forth a protest from the poet's admirer.
"May I ask," said Morton to his cousin, "who are your literary favorites?"
"Not the latter-day poets—the Tennysonian school; their puling mannerism is an insult to the Saxon tongue."
"But," urged Miss Jones, "you are not quite reasonable."
"Of course I am not. It's not a woman's province to be reasonable."
"Do you subscribe to these poetical heresies, Mr. Morton?"