“Oh yes, but I don’t greatly like poetry myself.”
“Why don’t you like poetry?”
“You see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like any one else’s.”
“Oh! And what you call metaphysic?”
This was too much. It was like the lady who attributed the decline of the Italian opera to the fact that singers would no longer “podge” their voices.
“And what, pray, is ‘podging’?” enquired my informant of the lady.
“Why, don’t you understand what ‘podging’ is? Well, I don’t know that I can exactly tell you, but I am sure Edith and Blanche podge beautifully.”
However, I said that metaphysics were la filosofia and this quieted him. He left poetry and turned to prose.
“Then you shall like much the works of Washington Irving?”
I was grieved to say that I did not; but I dislike Washington Irving so cordially that I determined to chance another “No.”