There is hardly a
limit to the knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of
the finest things, and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A
man may be a poet even, and speak with the tongue of an angel,
and yet be a very bad fool.
"I am sure it must be a beautiful poem," said Letty; "but I have
hardly got a hold of it yet." And she stretched her hand a little
farther, as if to proceed with its appropriation.
But Tom was not yet prepared to part with the book. He proceeded
instead, in fluent speech and not inappropriate language, to set
forth, not the power of the poem--that he both took and left as a
matter of course--but the beauty of those phrases, and the turns
of those expressions, which particularly pleased him--nor failing
to remark that, according to the strict laws of English verse,
there was in it one bad rhyme.
That point Letty begged him to explain, thus leading Tom to an
exposition of the laws of rhyme, in which, as far as English was
concerned, he happened to be something of an expert, partly from
an early habit of scribbling in ladies' albums. About these
surface affairs, Godfrey, understanding them better and valuing
them more than Tom, had yet taught Letty nothing, judging it
premature to teach polishing before carving; and hence this
little display of knowledge on the part of Tom impressed Letty
more than was adequate--so much, indeed, that she began to regard
him as a sage, and a compeer of her cousin Godfrey.
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