Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, April 16, 1919 by Various
page 20 of 64 (31%)
page 20 of 64 (31%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
recreation with him than revolver practice. But Greek he could never
abide, and he was confirmed in his instinct by the fact that at all the sixteen Courts where he had been received and decorated Classical Greek was practically unknown. It was the same in his travels in Morocco, Algeria, Kabylia, among the Touaregs, the Senussis and the pygmies of the Aruwhimi Hinterland. He never heard it even alluded to. Nor had he found it necessary for his investigations into the secret service of Foreign Powers, the writing of spy stories, the forecasting of the Great War or the composition of cinema plays. He had done his best to procure the prohibition of the study of Greek in the Republic of San Marino, and he was inclined to trace the present financial crisis in that State to his failure. (Cheers.) Mr. BERNARD SHAW struck a somewhat jarring note by the cynical remark that it would be a very good thing for modern sensational authors if Greek literature were not only neglected but destroyed, as some of the Classical authors had been guilty of prospective plagiarism on a large scale. He knew this as a fact, as he had been recently reading LUCIAN in a crib and found him devilish amusing. (Uproar and cries of "Shame!") A moving letter was read from Lord BEAVERBROOK, in which the great financier declared that, in arriving at the peerage at the age of thirty-seven, he had found his inability to read HOMER freely in the original no handicap or hindrance. He pointed out the interesting fact that Lord NORTHCLIFFE, who reached a similar elevation at the age of forty, had never composed any Greek iambics, though his literary style was singularly polished. It was felt that any further speeches after this momentous |
|