“Thanks. Don’t you think that to give a man such a chance to oblige people like—like your father and mother—rather puts the sense of obligation on the other side?”
“Aunt Anne says that it is written large on some debts, ‘Not transferable.’ You have put it very nicely, and still you must let me say once for all, I thank you.”
“I don’t know,” she cried, smiling. “That is not nominated in the bond.”
“Well, we will consider the other obligations settled,” he said, “and leave this for future adjustment. You will give me what the men call a good ‘recommend’ for a new place as bowman? I am rather vain of my poling. How wet you were!”
“Wet! You have no idea. It established new standards of moisture for me. But we got the fish.”
“Yes. I wonder if Mr. Lyndsay would let you fish our water. I could promise you a salmon or two. Ellett would like to exchange to-morrow afternoon, and try your lower pool, so that, if Mr. Lyndsay would take the lower half of our fishing and we the upper, we should be agreeably matronized—patronized I should say. Will you be so good as to give your father this note?”
Rose said yes, and he took up the book she had dropped into the hammock.
“Lowell! I like his essays more than his verse, except always the immortal fun of the Biglow Papers. That must surely live. For most of his poetry I care little.”
“Yes, it is graceful, interesting at times, which is not true of some much greater verse; but I do not care for it much,—and that is dreadful, because we all know him well and love him well.”
“Indeed! How pleasant that must be! Long as I have lived near him, I have never seen him.”
“We shall quarrel here and now if you do not at once praise the Biglow Papers.”
“Oh! but I could not say too much of them. After their kind they stand alone.”
“Thank you! And how rare it is that the poets combine humor with the higher qualities! It is sadly true of our day.”
“Yes, yes! It is laughable to hear people talk of Browning’s humor. At times he is grotesque or sardonic—never delicately humorous or funny. We want a word in between fun and humor. And Tennyson is not humorous. It all seems a part of the gloom which has fallen on English letters.”
“Oh, there is ‘Plump head-waiter at the Cock’!”