Occasionally, of course, the feeling was
altogether beyond him, but even then he would sometimes enter
into the literary merit of the utterance.
"I had no idea there were such gems in George Herbert, Mary!" he
said once. "I declare, some of them are even in their structure
finer than many things that have nothing in them to admire except
the structure."
"That is not to be wondered at," replied Mary.
"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear
to me the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain
enough."
"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she
would have liked to show.
"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"--he pronounced it
_pome_--"you read just now--"
"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly.
"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it,
I heard the gentleman--Mr. George Herbert, you call him--playing
the tune to it."
"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy,
play the tune over again to us."
"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his
instrument, which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in
the wall the moment he came in.
He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into
harmony with the recollection of what he had heard the master
play, and then began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual
to pour out his soul.
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