Explore "Adam's Breed" by Radclyffe Hall on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Gian-Luca's unknown Italian poet was a wonder-worker, it seemed, for he wove a spell not only for himself, but for all his fellow craftsmen. Having read and reread what he had to say, Gian-Luca bethought him of Browning, and found to his delight that though Browning was English -- a very great drawback he felt to any poet -- yet, nevertheless, he could make the heart beat and the eyes fill with sudden tears. From Browning he turned to Tennyson and Wordsworth, and finally rediscovered Kipling. He had studied them all while he was at school, but now when he read them they seemed different.
Alone in the room that had once been Olga's, Gian-Luca made friends of his books. He would talk to them, pet them: "Oh, bello! " he would say, stroking a page with his hand. Or he might feel disapproval, in which case he would scold: "That is ugly, I do not like that line; if you were in Italian it would fit much better, it would not have so many small words."