"
"Why?" I asked with masculine directness.
"I've been trying to educate myself--to read poetry. Look here"--she
caught a small brown-covered octavo volume from the table. "I can't make
head or tail of it. It proved to me that it was no use. If I couldn't
understand poetry, I couldn't understand anything. It was no good trying
to educate myself. I gave it up. And then I got what you don't like me
to call the hump."
"You dear Lola!" I cried, laughing. "I don't believe any one has ever
made head or tail out of 'Sordello.' There once was a man who said
there were only two intelligible lines in the poem--the first and the
last--and that both were lies. 'Who will, may hear Sordello's story
told,' and 'Who would, has heard Sordello's story told.' Don't worry
about not understanding it."
"Don't you?"
"Not a bit," said I.
"That's a comfort," she said, with a generous sigh of relief. "How well
you're looking!" she cried suddenly. "You're a different man. What have
you been doing to yourself?"
"I've grown quite alive.
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