"I thought I saw my late espoused wife
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,"--
and the bits about Satan in _Paradise Lost_. The sound of the lines gave
her the same nice feeling that she had when Mrs. Propart played the March
in Scipio after Evening Service. She tried to make lines of her own that
went the same way as the lines in Milton and Shakespeare and Pope's
_Iliad_. She found out that there was nothing she liked so much as making
these lines. It was nicer even than playing the Hungarian March. She
thought it was funny that the lines like Pope's _Iliad_ came easiest,
though they had to rhyme.
"Silent he wandered by the sounding sea," was good, but the Greek line
that Mark showed her went: "Be d'akeon para thina poluphloisboio
thalasses"; that was better. "Don't you think so, Mark?"
"Clever Minx. Much better."
"Mark--if God knew how happy I am writing poetry he'd make the earth open
and swallow me up."