"Then you have not the claim I set up for the new degree of C.I.D."
"Pray, what is that?"
"Doctor of crass ignorance, for which my pretensions are better than yours, as I scarcely know a rose from a rhododendron."
"But I only told you I was supposed to be learned, not that I am so. My reputation is very simply acquired. Whenever people are puzzling their memories about some flower, I boldly call it a something spirans, if it is of the twirligig kind, or else a something elegans, or if it is bright-coloured, a something splendens. My name is instantly adopted, and my wisdom meets with respect. Many other reputations are no better founded. Impudence may always reckon on the ignorance of an audience."
He laughed at this, and then said—
"Am I to presume you know something of Latin, then?"
"About as much as of botany. Papa, you know, is a great scholar, and has tried to teach us all Latin, though with mediocre success. But mind, it is a secret that I know even the little I do. Think of the injury it would do me. Who would waltz with a girl who was known to understand Latin?"
"True, true. Men don't like it. They are proud of their wives or lovers speaking all the continental languages, but a tinge of Latin is pronounced too blue. The secret of this male outcry is this: all men are supposed to understand Latin, and very few do; accordingly they resent any attempt to invade their prescriptive superiority. I remember my noble friend Leopardi used to say that only in a woman's mouth could the true beauty of Latin be properly recognised."
"Do you know Leopardi, then?"
"I did know him, poor fellow; but he has been dead these two years. He was a grand creature. Have you read his poems? I have never before met with any English who had heard of him."