[_He retires behind the curtain and is thrust out again. He resolves to make the best of it._
The author's obdurate, and bids me say That--since the doings of our far-off day Smacked less of Hippocrene than of Bohea-- His tiny pictures of that tiny time Aim little at the lofty and sublime, And paint no peccadillo as a crime-- Since when illegally light midges mate, Or flies purloin, or gnats assassinate, No sane man hales them to the magistrate.
Or so he says. He merely strove to find And fix a faithful likeness of mankind About its daily business,--to secure No full-length portrait, but a miniature,-- And for it all no moral can procure.
Let Bulmer, then, defend his old-world crew, And beg indulgence--nay, applause--of you.
Grant that we tippled and were indiscreet, And that our idols all had earthen feet; Grant that we made of life a masquerade; And swore a deal more loudly than we prayed; Grant none of us the man his Maker meant,-- Our deeds, the parodies of our intent, In neither good nor ill pre-eminent; Grant none of us a Nero,--none a martyr,-- All merely so-so. And _de te narratur_.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gallantry, by James Branch Cabell