ll you
something else. When I was a boy I had a knack at versing, which came
rather in anticipation of the subjects to use it on. I exhausted Spring
and Morning and Snow and Memory, and the whole range of mythological
topics, and then I had my knack lying idle. I observed that there was
one subject that the other poets found inexhaustible, but somehow I felt
myself disqualified for treating it. How could I sing of Love when I had
never been in love? For I didn't count those youthful affairs when I was
only in the Third Reader and the first part of the Arithmetic. I went
about trying to be in love, as a matter of business; but I couldn't
manage it. Suddenly it managed itself; and then I found myself worse
disqualified than ever. I didn't want to mention it; either to myself
or to her, much less to the world at large. It seemed a little too
personal."

"Oh, uncle! How funny you are!"

"Do you think so? I didn't think it much fun then, and I don't now. Once
I didn't know what love was, and now I've forgotten!"

"No such thing, uncle! You write about it beautifully, even if you're
not very virile or epigrammatic or passionate. I won't let you say so."

"Well, then, my dear, if I haven't forgotten, I'm not interested. You
see, I know so much more about it than my lovers do. I can't take their
point of view any longer. To tell you the truth, I don't care a rap
whether they get married or not. In that story there, that you've been
reading, I got awfully tired of the girl. She was such a fool, and the
fellow was a perfect donkey."

"But he was the dearest donkey in the world! I wanted to h--shake hands
with him, and I wanted to kiss--yes, kiss!--_her_, she was such a
lovable fool."

"You're very kind to say so, my dear, but you can't keep on making
delightful idiots go down with the public. That was what I was thinking
when you came in and found me looking so dismal. I had stopped in the
middle of a most exciting scene because I had discovered that I was
poking fun at my lovers."

"And here I," the girl lamented, "didn't take the slightest notice, but
began on you with the harshest criticisms!"

"I didn't mind. I dare say it was for my good."

"I'm sure I meant it so, uncle. And what are you going to do about it?"

"Well, I must get a new point of view."

"Yes?"

"I must change my ground altogether. I can't pretend any longer to be
the contemporary of my lovers, or to have the least sympathy with their
hopes and