People must say something, lest life should
stop.
"That is a question difficult to answer," replied Mary. "I have
often asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer."
"I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it," returned
Hesper, with a shadow of interest. "You know what you mean when
you say to yourself you like this, or you do not like that."
"How clever she is, too!" thought Mary; but she answered: "I
don't think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I
read--not at the time, I mean. If I like it, it drowns me; and,
if I don't like it, it is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you
know you can't sink, if you try ever so."
Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was
so stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she
had taken to her began to sink like water in sand. The two were
still on their feet, near the window--Mary, in her bonnet, with
her back to it, and Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to
the sunset, so that the one was like a darkling worshiper, the
other like the radiant goddess. But the truth was, that Hesper
was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a heavenly messenger to her.
Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for the angels are
essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended to any
angel out of her own class.
"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary,
thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of
the hour.
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