“But have you not a few lines, Mr. Smythe, on marriage, although you have not as yet entered into that happy state?” said Mr. Bond.
“O dear yes! I have pieces without number. For instance, here is one from Middleton,—
‘What a delicious breath marriage sends forth—
The violet’s bed not sweeter! Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden,
On which the spring flowers take delight
To cast their modest odours.’
“Here are some more,” he remarked, “from Cotton,—
‘Though fools spurn Hymen’s gentle powers,
We who improve his golden hours,
By sweet experience know
That marriage rightly understood
Gives to the tender and the good
A Paradise below.’”
Still going on, he said, “Here are some charming lines, Mr. Bond, from Moore,—
‘There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linked in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this—it is this.’”
At the close of these lines something occurred to stop Mr. Smythe going any further.
Poetic quotations in conversation are all very well, when given aptly and wisely; but coming, as they often do, as the fruits of affectation and pedantry, they are repulsive. One wishes in these circumstances that the talker had a few thoughts of his own in prose besides those of the poets which he so lavishly pours into one’s jaded ears.