Perhaps if Mary had lived in the bosom of a particularly sympathetic
family she might have been reckoned almost a genius, so much of poetry
and originality was there in her free unconventional character; but
hitherto it had been Mary's mission in life to be snubbed, whereby she
had acquired a very poor opinion of her own talents.
'Oh,' she cried with a desperate yawn, while Lesbia smiled her languid
smile over Endymion, 'how I wished something would happen--anything to
stir us out of this statuesque, sleeping-beauty state of being. I verily
believe the spiders are all asleep in the ivy, and the mice behind the
wainscot, and the horses in the stable.'
'What could happen?' asked Lesbia, with a gentle elevation of pencilled
brows. 'Are not these lovely lines--
"And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach,
Or ripe October's faded marigolds,
Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds."
Faded marigolds! Is not that intensely sweet?'
'Very well for your sleepy Keats, but I don't suppose you would have
noticed the passage if marigolds were not in fashion,' said Mary, with a
touch of scorn.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75