I asked of my love—What is hate?
I asked of decay—Art thou life?
And of night—Art thou day?
Did they answer?
The poet looked up with eyes of keen and almost fierce inquiry. The audience quailed a little, but, not feeling the burden of response thrown upon them, resumed their expectant attitudes, waiting to hear what the various oracles had said to their poetic questioner. But they were taken in, if one might use so homely an expression. The poem was all over. That was the beginning and the end of it. The poet flung away his last page, and sank dreamy, exhausted, back into his chair. A moment of awful silence succeeded. Then he gathered up his illuminated scrolls, rose from his chair, bowed gravely, and left the room, Mary Blanchet hurried after him.
Minola was perplexed, depressed, and remorseful. She thought there must be something in the productions which made their author so much in earnest, and she was afraid she had not seemed attentive enough, or that Blanchet had detected her in her early inclination to smile. There was an embarrassed pause when Victor and she were left together.
"He reads very well," Heron said at last. "A capital reader, I think. Don't you? He throws his soul into it. That's the great thing."
"It is," said Minola, "if it's much to throw—oh, I don't know what I mean by that. But how do you like the poems?"
"Well, I am sure they must be very fine. I should rather hear the judgment of some one else. I should like to hear you speak first. You tell me what you think of them and then I'll tell you, as the children say."
"I don't care about them," said Minola, shaking her head sadly. "I have tried, Mr. Heron; but I can't admire them. I can't see any originality, or poetry, or anything in them. I could not admire them—unless a command came express from the Queen to tell me to think them good."