"Do you read poetry a great deal?" she asked, and she thought if his taste was mainly for poetry, it would simplify the difficulty of choosing the books for her present.
"Well, I'm rather returning to it. I've been looking into Crabbe of late, and I have found him full of a quaint charm."
"Crabbe? I never heard of him!" she owned as boldly as before, for if he had been worth hearing of, she knew that she would have heard of him. "Don't you like Kipling?"
"Yes, when he is not noisy. I think I prefer William Watson among your very modern moderns."
"Why, is he living yet? I thought he wrote ten or fifteen years ago! You don't call him modern! You like Stevenson, don't you? He's a great stylist; everybody says he is, and so is George Meredith. You must like him?"
"He's a great intellect, but a little of him goes almost as long a way as a little of Browning. I think I prefer Henry James."
"Oh yes, he's just coming up. He's the one that has distinction. But the people who write like him are a great deal more popular. They have all his distinction, and they don't tax your mind so much. But don't let's get off on novelists or there's no end to it. Who are really your favorite poets?"
"Well, I read Shakespeare rather often, and I read Dante by fits and starts; and I do not mind Milton from time to time. I like Wordsworth, and I like Keats a great deal better; every now and then I take up Cowper with pleasure, and I have found myself going back to Pope with real relish. And Byron; yes, Byron! But I shouldn't advise your reading Don Juan."
"That's an opera, isn't it? What they call 'Don Giovanni.' I never heard of any such poem."
"That shows how careful you have been of your reading."