A loving heart is truest wisdom
"Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day." Bleak House, Ch.XLVII, ‘Charlie Dickens
Opinions can be ignored, mocked,
That’s fair enough – satirists’d be buggered –
Otherwise
and, of course,
No-one has the right not to be offended
I am offended everyday
By the complacent, middle-class old
Bastards who hang on to every penny
And have the empathy of granite.
And so easily condemn
Those poorer or less well-educated
Than them.
I love the novels of Dickens
For the way that he exposes hypocrisy
Like a cardiac surgeon exposes the aorta
His touch and tone
Make my breath hold
A note
For so long.
It ends up as a song.
John Marks
Tue 21st Apr 2020 21:26
Yes Brian, I, too, love Mr Micawber, really makes me laugh. It is SO difficult to write good comedy. Mr M also has some wonderful things to say about our art, poetry:
“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”
― Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers
and, you'll really like this one Brian:
“She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met with her 'Ode to an Expiring Frog,' sir.”
― Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers