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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, April 16, 1919 by Various
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
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