Oh, what a precious opportunity ye
lost, ye ravening crew, of convicting the poor, half-starved,
friendless boy of the book, of ignorance or misrepresentation, by
asking who with a name beginning with Z ever wrote fables in
Armenian; but ye couldn't help yourselves, ye are duncie. We
duncie! Ay, duncie. So here ye are held up by the tails, blood
and foam streaming from your jaws.
The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this,
Messieurs les Critiques? Were ye ever served so before? But don't
you richly deserve it? Haven't you been for years past bullying
and insulting everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour
with everybody whom you thought strong? "We approve of this. We
disapprove of that. Oh, this will never do. These are fine
lines!" The lines perhaps some horrid sycophantic rubbish
addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so. To have your ignorance
thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and by whom? A gypsy!
Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But is it not
galling, after all?
"Ah, but WE don't understand Armenian, it cannot be expected that
WE should understand Armenian, or Welsh, or--Hey, what's this? The
mighty WE not understand Armenian or Welsh, or--Then why does the
mighty WE pretend to review a book like Lavengro? From the
arrogance with which it continually delivers itself, one would
think that the mighty WE is omniscient; that it understands every
language; is versed in every literature; yet the mighty WE does not
even know the word for bread in Armenian.
Pages:
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592