Lapsus Calami (Aug 1891)/Of Lord B.
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VI. Of Lord B.
A Grievance.
Dear Mr Editor: I wish to say—If you will not be angry at my writing it—But I've been used, since childhood's happy day,When I have thought of something, to inditing it:I seldom think of things: and, by the way,Although this metre may not be exciting, itEnables one to be extremely terse,Which is not what one always is in verse.
I used to know a man,—such things befallThe observant wayfarer through Fate's domain:He was a man, take him for all in all,We shall not look upon his like again:I know that statement's not original:What statement is, since Shakspere? or, since Cain,What murder? I believe 'twas Shakspere said it, orPerhaps it may have been your Fighting Editor.
Though why an Editor should fight, or whyA Fighter should abase himself to edit,Are problems far too difficult and highFor me to solve with any sort of credit:Some greatly more accomplished man than IMust tackle them: let's say then Shakspere said it:And, if he did not, Lewis Morris may(Or even if he did). Some other day,
When I have nothing pressing to impart,I should not mind dilating on this matter:I feel its import both in head and heart,And always did,—especially the latter:I could discuss it in the busy martOr on the lonely housetop: hold! this chatterDiverts me from my purpose. To the point:The time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint,
And I perhaps was born to set it right;A fact I greet with perfect equanimity;I do not put it down to "cursed spite":I don't see any cause for cursing in it: IHave always taken very great delightIn such pursuits since first I read divinity:Whoever will may write a nation's songsAs long as I'm allowed to right its wrongs.
What's Eton but a nursery of wrong-righters,A mighty mother of effective men,A training-ground for amateur reciters,A sharpener of the sword as of the pen,A factory of orators and fighters,A forcing-house of genius? Now and then,The world at large shrinks back, abashed and beaten,Unable to endure the glare of Eton.
I think I said I knew a man: what then?I don't suppose such knowledge is forbid:We nearly all do, more or less, know men,—Or think we do: nor will a man get ridOf that delusion, while he wields a pen:But who this man was, what, if aught, he did,Nor why I mentioned him, I do not know:Nor what I "wished to say" a while ago.