The prominant literary critic Charles Lamb had an increasingly bad relationship with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge was fond of sentimental friendships, all grand, sweeping emotions, declarations of love and tearful embraces. Charles Lamb grew disenchanted and ultimately rather annoyed with them. Coleridge was also fond of the Romantic, metaphysical monologues about nothing in particular.
During one particularly rambling monologue about the life, the universe and everything, Coleridge, who had once been a Unitarian minister planning on founding a utopian commune on the banks of the Susquehanna interrupted himself to ask, "Charles, have you ever heard me preach?"
Replied the weary Lamb: "I have never heard you do anything else."
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An excellent bon mot. I shall have to remember it in the case that I might be able to use it!
ReplyDeleteHerr Mozart, I hope you never have to be in such a situation! However, it is rather a clever response. :D
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