The gossip of the drawing-room is merely inane, or else scandalous; but shift the scene to the theatre, and a story no longer bores; it is consecrated by the sacrament of interest.

Before writing these lines I had never attempted verse in my lifebarring intentionally inane doggerel.

Lucky is the alumnus who can call the roll of his old instructors, and among the martinets and the pedants and the piously inane can here and there come suddenly upon a man; a man who taught him to think, or helped him to feel, and thrilled him with a new horizon.