s the pride of the community,
The Radical Hereditary Peer.
And the genius who fattens on a chronic inability
To widen the horizon of his brain,
May be stupider than others whom the Curse of Versatility
Has fettered with a mediocre chain.

"Should a Civil Servant woo the panegyrics of Society,
And hanker after posthumous applause,
It MAY happen that possession of a prodigal variety
Of talents will invalidate his cause.
He must learn to put a tether on his cerebral agility,
And focus all his energies of aim
On ONE isolated idol, or the Curse of Versatility
Will drag him from the pinnacle of Fame.

"Though the Curse may be upon us, and condemn us for Eternity
To jostle with the ordinary horde;
Though we grovel at the shrine of the professional fraternity
Who harp upon one solitary chord;
Still...we face the situation with an imperturbability
Of spirit, from the knowledge that we owe
To the witchery that lingers in the Curse of Versatility
The balance of our happiness below."

Of course, to some temperaments variety will appeal; whilst others
revel in monotony. The latter are like a District Railway train, going
perpetually round and round the same Inner Circle. As far as my
experience goes, the former are the more interesting people to meet.

To persons of my time of life, the last verse of "Forty years on" has a
tendency to linger in the memory. It runs--

"Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?"

Although it is now fifty, instead of "forty years on," I indignantly
disclaim the "feeble of foot," whilst reluctantly pleading guilty to
"rheumatic of shoulder." It is common to most people, as they advance
in life, to note with a sorrowful satisfaction the gradual decay of the
physical powers of their contemporaries, though they always seem to
imagine that they themselves have retained all their pristine vigour,
and have successfully resisted every assault of Time's battering-ram.
The particular sentiment described in German as "Schadenfreude,"
"pleasure over another's troubles" (how characteristic it is that there
should be no equivalent in any other language for this peculiarly
Teutonic emotion!), makes but little appeal to the average Briton
except where questions of age and of failing