Question

Read the poem carefully and answer the following question. 
I smiled at you because I thought that you 
Were someone else; you smiled back; and there grew 
Between two strangers in a library |
Something that seems like love; but you loved me 
(If that’s the word) because you thought that I 
Was other than I was. And by and by 
We found we’d been mistaken all the while 
From that first glance, that first mistaken smile
Which of the following CANNOT be inferred from the poem?

• A. We make mistakes in love.
• B. We fall in love with strangers.
• C. Love may start with small acts like glancing and smiling.
• D. The idea of love is different for the parties involved.
• E. We don’t fall in love with others but with ourselves.

Answer 1

Answer: (E)

Poem cues:
“Between two strangers in a library / Something that seems like love; … you thought that I / Was other than I was… we’d been mistaken… from that first glance, that first mistaken smile.”

Answer: Option 5 — We don’t fall in love with others but with ourselves.

Why Option 5 CANNOT be inferred
• The poem shows misrecognition and projection (“you thought that I / Was other than I was”), but it never claims that each person loves only themselves.
• Saying we love “ourselves” is a strong, universal claim (narcissism), which the text does not assert. At most, it suggests loving a mistaken idea of the other, not oneself.
• In inference terms, the poem’s text $T$ does not entail statement $S$ (i.e., $T \nRightarrow S$). The leap from mistaking the other to loving only oneself is unsupported.

Why the other options ARE supported
We make mistakes in love. — Supported by repeated emphasis on error: “we’d been mistaken all the while,” “first mistaken smile.”

We fall in love with strangers. — Explicit: “Between two strangers in a library / Something that seems like love.”

Love may start with small acts like glancing and smiling. — Explicit cues: “that first glance, that first mistaken smile” precede “something that seems like love.”

The idea of love is different for the parties involved. — Nuanced support: one voice says “something that seems like love,” the other qualifies “you loved me (If that’s the word)” — indicating doubt and asymmetry about what counts as “love.”

Key takeaway: The poem clearly supports mistaken identity, strangers’ spark, and small gestures triggering ‘seeming’ love, and it hints at different conceptions of love. It does not justify the absolute claim that we love only ourselves. Hence, Option 5 is the one that cannot be inferred.