But he told
stories admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a
little, of which one was glad, for that night he was in his more acrid
mood, and though much more brilliant than on the former evening, grew
wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost everything he
said.
[Footnote A: George Henry Lewes.]
"For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the whole
harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind.
Tennyson wrote in verse because the schoolmasters had taught him that
it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from
the true path for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been turned from
his vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to see that
it would have been better to write straight on in prose;--and such
nonsense, which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after
a while.
"The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some refrain,
as in the French Revolution of the _sea-green_. In this instance, it
was Petrarch and _Laura_, the last word pronounced with his ineffable
sarcasm of drawl.
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