let's
get off on novelists or there's no end to it. Who are really your
favorite poets?"

"Well, I read Shakespeare rather often, and I read Dante by fits and
starts; and I do not mind Milton from time to time. I like Wordsworth,
and I like Keats a great deal better; every now and then I take up
Cowper with pleasure, and I have found myself going back to Pope with
real relish. And Byron; yes, Byron! But I shouldn't advise your reading
_Don Juan_."

"That's an opera, isn't it? What they call 'Don Giovanni.' I never heard
of any such poem."

"That shows how careful you have been of your reading."

"Oh, we read everything nowadays--if it's up to date; and if _Don Juan_
had been, you may be sure I would have heard of it. I suppose you like
Tennyson, and Longfellow, and Emerson, and those _old_ poets?"

"Are they old? They used to be so new! Yes, I like them, and I like
Whittier and some things of Bryant's."

At the last two names the girl looked vague, but she said: "Oh yes, I
suppose so. And I suppose you like the old dramatists?"

"Some of them--Marlowe, and Beaumont and Fletcher: a few of their plays.
But I can't stand most of the Elizabethans; I can't stand Ben Jonson at
all."

"Oh yes--'Rasselas.' I can't stand him either, grandfather. I'm quite
with you about Ben Jonson. 'Too much Johnson,' you know."

The grandfather looked rather blank. "Too _different_ Johnsons, I think,
my dear. But perhaps you didn't mean the Elizabethans; perhaps you mean
the dramatists of the other Johnson's time. Well, I like Sheridan pretty
well, though his wit strikes me as mechanical, and I really prefer
Goldsmith; in his case, I prefer his _Vicar of Wakefield_, and his poems
to his plays. Plays are not very easy reading, unless they are the very
best. Shakespeare's are the only plays that one _wants_ to read."

The young girl held up her charming chin, with the air of keeping it
above water too deep for her. "And Ibsen?" she suggested. "I hope you
despise Ibsen as much as I do. He's clear gone out now, thank goodness!
Don't you think _Ghosts_ was horrid?"

"It's dreadful, my dear; but I shouldn't say it was horrid. No, I don't
despise Ibsen; and I have found Mr. Pinero's plays good reading."

"Oh," the girl said, getting her foot on the ground. "'The Gay Lord
Quex'; Miss Vanbrugh was _great_ in that. But now don't get off on the
theatre, grandfather, or there will be no end to it. Which of the old,
_old_ poets--before Burns