" He then moved towards the gate, where we
parted; he going one way, and I and my horse the other.
More than twenty years subsequent to this period, after much
wandering about the world, returning to my native country, I was
invited to a literary tea-party, where, the discourse turning upon
poetry, I, in order to show that I was not more ignorant than my
neighbours, began to talk about Byron, for whose writings I really
entertained considerable admiration, though I had no particular
esteem for the man himself. At first, I received no answer to what
I said--the company merely surveying me with a kind of sleepy
stare. At length a lady, about the age of forty, with a large wart
on her face, observed, in a drawling tone, "That she had not read
Byron--at least, since her girlhood--and then only a few passages;
but that the impression on her mind was, that his writings were of
a highly objectionable character." "I also read a little of him in
my boyhood," said a gentleman about sixty, but who evidently, from
his dress and demeanour, wished to appear about thirty, "but I
highly disapproved of him; for, notwithstanding he was a nobleman,
he is frequently very coarse, and very fond of raising emotion.
Now emotion is what I dislike;" drawling out the last syllable of
the word dislike.
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