“That's the best that can be said for it anyhow,—except indeed that the poor ignorant sailor might, in the midst of such horrors, well make the blunder.—By the way, in the first edition it stood as you have just said: the line was,
“'Almost within the tips.'”
“What did he change it to?”
“He made it—
“'Within the nether tip.'”
“Why did he change it?”
“You would see that at the first glance, if you were used to riming.”
“Are you a poet, then, as well as a blacksmith and a bookbinder?”
“Too much of a poet, I hope, to imagine myself more than a whittler of reeds!” answered Richard.
He was not sorry, however, to let Barbara know him for a poor relation of the high family of poets. In truth, what best enabled him to understand their work, was the humble work of the same sort he did himself.