S’endormaient sur le trône, et, me servant sans honte,
Laissaient leur sceptre aux mains ou d’un maire ou d’un comte?
Aucun soin n’approchait de leur paisible cour:
On reposait la nuit, on dormait tout le jour.
Seulement au printemps, quand Flore dans les plaines
Faisaient taire des vents les bruyantes haleines,
Quatre bœufs attelés, d’un pas tranquille et lent,
Promenaient dans Paris le monarque indolent.”
When I told Dr. Verrall that we were reading Boileau he was delighted. He said: “How I wish I was reading Boileau; instead of which, when I have time to read, I read the latest Kipling story.” He said he spent his life in vain regret for the books he wanted to read, but which he knew he never would read. He could not help reading the modern books, but he often deplored the sad necessity. I stuck up for the modern books; I said I would far rather read Kipling than Boileau. I supposed in Boileau’s time people said: “Here I am, wasting my time reading Boileau, which I must read so as to follow the conversation at dinner, when I might be reading le Roman de la Rose.”
Dr. Verrall was an amusing story-teller, and I remember his telling a story of two old ladies who, while they were listening to the overture of Lohengrin, looked at each other with a puzzled, timid expression, until one of them asked the other: “Is it the gas?” Dr. Verrall told me he thought Rossetti’s poem, the “Blessed Damozel,” was rubbish. On the other hand, he admired his ballad, “Sister Helen.”