monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones,--the whole lot that have no
mates,--as soon as I hear their names called. Sometimes I run over a
string of rhymes, but generally speaking it is strange what a short list
it is of those that are good for anything. That is the pitiful side of
all rhymed verse. Take two such words as home and world. What can you
do with chrome or loam or gnome or tome? You have dome, foam, and roam,
and not much more to use in your pome, as some of our fellow-countrymen
call it. As for world, you know that in all human probability somebody
or something will be hurled into it or out of it; its clouds may be
furled or its grass impearled; possibly something may be whirled, or
curled, or have swirled, one of Leigh Hunt's words, which with lush, one
of Keats's, is an important part of the stock in trade of some dealers in
rhyme.

--And how much do you versifiers know of all those arts and sciences you
refer to as if you were as familiar with them as a cobbler is with his
wax and lapstone?

--Enough not to make too many mistakes. The best way is to ask some
expert before one risks himself very far in illustrations from a branch
he does not know much about. Suppose, for instance, I wanted to use the
double star to illustrate anything, say the relation of two human souls
to each other, what would I--do? Why, I would ask our young friend there
to let me look at one of those loving celestial pairs through his
telescope, and I don't doubt he'd let me do so, and tell me their names
and all I wanted to know about them.

--I should be most happy to show any of the double stars or whatever else
there might be to see in the heavens to any of our friends at this
table,--the young man said, so cordially and kindly that it was a real