"Well," said he, "better good verse than middling poetry. And maybe even
the humblest of rhymes has its uses. Happiness is happiness, whether it
be inspired by a Rossetti sonnet or a ballad by G. R. Sims. Let each one
who has something to say, say it in the best way he can, and abide the
result. . . . After all," he went on, "what does it matter? We are
living in a pygmy day. With Tennyson and Browning the line of great
poets passed away, perhaps for ever. The world to-day is full of little
minstrels, who echo one another and who pipe away tunefully enough. But
with one exception they do not matter."
I dared to ask who was his one exception. He answered, "Myself, of
course."
Here's a bit of light verse which it amused me to write to-day, as I sat
in the sun on the terrace of the Closerie de Lilas: