An extreme lack of dignity in the conduct of the state

I could almost fancy my-

self ripening too, along 
with the oranges and the 
limes in that grateful 
warmth - or in watching 
the dace that darted to 
and fro in the fish-pond, 
at the bottom of the gar-
den, with here and there 
a great sulky pike hanging 
midway down the water in 
silent state, as if it 
mocked at their impertin-
ent friskings, - I had more 
pleasure in these busy-idle 
diversions than in all the 
sweet flavours of peaches, 
nectarines, oranges, and 
such like common baits of 

children.

Is this in the short list
of the brightest and most
humane prose writing this
language has heard? Ignor-
ing the intensity and del-
icacy of this writer's
bucolic similes, is there
not, when you hold your own
child close, praise for the
vision of his development?

Mr John Kerry attended the

St Paul's School. I hold a

Paulie, with several of whom

I rowed, and not a few with

whom I got drunk over cards

in those undergrad years, to

a reasonable standard of sob-

riety when introducing one to

a new war.

Now I hear, the sulky pike is

about to chastise the little

fish, for besmirching the vows

of a government which does not

reign over them. How used one

is, to this information!

Mad as it could be portrayed

to be, I feel an obligation 

to my readers to dissect this

tragic series of remarks, as

virtually a Virgilian ledger

of the corruption of a harvest.

The sensation - and we all do

know it - of ripening under a

struggle to learn and to mas-

ter - is such, in Lamb, that 

the catastrophe of any mis-

direction feels like a dis-

avowal of nature, itself.

At the moment, however, one

has to rely on the theory of

republican government: that

all are implicated by consent

in its conduct. If one can

consent to a war precipitated

on the basis of revolting pic-

tures; if one cannot contain

one's panic when the evidence

of rage's impotency is exposed; 

if one can honestly regard death

as an instrument of instruction,

then one may assert any umbrage
as a Cause. And cut the cards.

Charles Lamb

Elia
  Dream-Children,

  A Reverie

London Magazine

January, 1822

ibid.

Jonas Kloch