romantic things, of course--but he didn't mean half of them!--I'm
sure he didn't!"

She coloured indignantly.

"You say that because you know nothing about it," she said--"You
have not read his writings."

"No--and I'm not sure that I want to," he answered, gaily. "Dear
Innocent, you must remember that I was at Oxford--my dear old
father and mother scraped and screwed every penny they could get
to send me there--and I believe I acquitted myself pretty well--
but one of the best things I learned was the general uselessness
and vanity of the fellows that called themselves 'literary.' They
chiefly went in for disparaging and despising everyone who did not
agree with them and think just as they did. Mulish prigs, most of
them!" and Robin laughed his gay and buoyant laugh once more--
"They didn't know that I was all the time comparing them with the
honest type of farmer--the man who lives an outdoor life with
God's air blowing upon him, and the soil turned freshly beneath
him!--I love books, too, in my way, but I love Nature better."

"And do not poets help you to understand Nature?" asked Innocent.

"The best of them do--such as Shakespeare and Keats and Tennyson,
--but they were of the past. The modern men make you almost despise
Nature,--more's the pity! They are always studying THEMSELVES, and
analysing THEMSELVES, and pitying THEMSELVES--now _I_ always say,
the less of one's self the better, in order to understand other
people."