"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just
seem to scan very well."

Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you exactly. You like the
meek rhyme and the conventional epithet. Well, I don't. The world
has passed beyond that prettiness. You want the moon described as a
Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer
barrel or a cheese. You want a wealth of jolly words and real
things ruled out as unfit for poetry. I say there's nothing unfit
for poetry. Nothing, Dogson! Poetry's everywhere, and the real
thing is commoner among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than
in your Sunday parlours. The poet's business is to distil it out of
rottenness, and show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps
the stars in their place....I wanted to call my book 'Drains,'
for drains are sheer poetry carrying off the excess and discards
of human life to make the fields green and the corn ripen.
But the publishers kicked. So I called it 'Whorls,' to express my
view of the exquisite involution of all things. Poetry is the
fourth dimension of the soul....Well, let's hear about your
taste in prose."

Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross.
He disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness held.

He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.

Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.