Part 32 (2/2)

'But surely Mr. Bowdler made Shakespeare quite respectable,' Mrs.

Beecher argued.

'He did his work very carelessly. He left in much that might be dispensed with, and he omitted a good deal which was quite innocent.'

'How do you know?'

'Because I once got two copies and read all the omissions.'

'Why did you do that?' asked Maude mischievously.

'Because I wanted to make sure that they HAD been omitted,' said Mrs.

Hunt Mortimer severely.

Mrs. Beecher stooped and picked an invisible hairpin out of the rug.

Mrs. Hunt Mortimer continued.

'There is Byron, of course. But he is so very suggestive. There are pa.s.sages in his works--'

'I could never see any harm in them,' said Mrs. Beecher.

'That is because you did not know where to look,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. 'If you have a copy in the house, Mrs. Beecher, I will undertake to make it abundantly clear to you that he is to be eschewed by those who wish to keep their thoughts unsullied. Not? I fancy that even quoting from memory I could convince you that it is better to avoid him.'

'Pa.s.s Byron,' said Mrs. Beecher, who was a very pretty little kittenish person, with no apparent need of any cosmetics, literary or otherwise. 'How about Sh.e.l.ley?'

'Frank raves about Sh.e.l.ley,' observed Maude.

Mrs. Hunt Mortimer shook her head.

'His work has some dreadful tendencies. He was, I am informed, either a theist or an atheist, I cannot for the moment recall which-- I think that we should make our little course as improving as possible.'

'Tennyson,' Maude suggested.

'I have been told that his meaning is too clear to ent.i.tle him to rank among the great thinkers of our race. The lofty thought is necessarily obscure. There is no merit in following a poem which is perfectly intelligible. Which leads us to--'

'Browning!' cried the other ladies.

'Exactly. We might form a little Browning Society of our own.'

'Charming! Charming!'

And so it was agreed.

There was only one other point to be settled at this their inaugural meeting, which was, to choose the other ladies who should be admitted into their literary circle. There were to be no men.

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