My Small Boat

A forte always makes a foible.

Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard
We, the Fairies, blithe and antic,
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.
Stolen sweets are always sweeter,
Stolen kisses much completer,
Stolen looks are nice in chapels,
Stolen, stolen, be your apples.
When to bed the world are bobbing,
Then’s the time for orchard-robbing;
Yet the fruit were scarce […]

‘I have done that,’ says my memory. ‘I cannot have done that’ - says my pride, and remains adamant. At last memory yields.

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

Mrs Darwin
7 April 1852.
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him -
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.

Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.

To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes - our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.

History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother […]

He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.

It would be an inconvenient rule if nothing could be done until everything can be done.

Recipe for a Hippopotamus Sandwich
A hippo sandwich is easy to make.
All you do is simply take
One slice of bread,
One slice of cake,
Some mayonnaise
One onion ring,
One hippopotamus
One piece of string,
A dash of pepper –
That ought to do it.
And now comes the problem…
Biting into it!