en they are placed in similar conditions.

We were sitting together in a very quiet way over our teacups. The young
Doctor, who was in the best of spirits, had been laughing and chatting
with the two Annexes. The Tutor, who always sits next to Number Five of
late, had been conversing with her in rather low tones. The rest of us
had been soberly sipping our tea, and when the Doctor and the Annexes
stopped talking there was one of those dead silences which are sometimes
so hard to break in upon, and so awkward while they last. All at once
Number Seven exploded in a loud laugh, which startled everybody at the
table.

What is it that sets you laughing so? said I.

"I was thinking," Number Seven replied, "of what you said the other day
of poetry being only the ashes of emotion. I believe that some people
are disposed to dispute the proposition. I have been putting your
doctrine to the test. In doing it I made some rhymes,--the first and
only ones I ever made. I will suppose a case of very exciting emotion,
and see whether it would probably take the form of poetry or prose. You
are suddenly informed that your house is on fire, and have to scramble
out of it, without stopping to tie your neck-cloth neatly or to put
a flower in your buttonhole. Do you think a poet turning out in his
night-dress, and looking on while the flames were swallowing his home
and all its contents, would express himself in this style?

"My house is on fire!
Bring me my lyre!
Like the flames that rise heavenward my song shall aspire!

"He would n't do any such thing, and you know he wouldn't. He would yell
Fire! Fire! with all his might. Not much rhyming for him just yet! Wait
until the fire is put out, and he has had time to look at the charred
timbers and the ashes of his home, and in the course of a week he may
possibly spin a few rhymes about it. Or suppose he was making an
offer of his hand and heart, do you think he would declaim a versified
proposal to his Amanda, or perhaps write an impromptu on the back of his
hat while he knelt before her?

"My beloved, to you
I will always be true.
Oh, pray make me happy, my love, do! do! do!

"What would Amanda think of a suitor who courted her with a rhyming
dictionary in his pocket to help him make love?"

You are right, said I,--there's nothing in the world like rhymes to cool
off a man's passion. You look at a blacksmith working on a bit of iron
or steel