[blml] Fwd: self-serving ? Was : a psyche classification

[David Burn]

[nigel]

Googling for David Burn's latest elicited one citation 
above (with "affair of Cain" rather than David's "affair of Paine" but 
David's version seems more plausible). Is it it G.K Chesterton? is it 
Paine or Cain? and what is the name of the Poem?

[DALB]

My apologies for having misquoted, and thereby thrown the entirety of the
Bridge Laws Mailing List into a frenzy of scholarly confusion. I had
conflated in my mind several lines from what follows. The echo of
Shakespeare's "And Brutus is an honourable man" will not need pointing out
to students of literature, which is to say that it will need pointing out
here.

Ballade of Gentlemanly Feeling and Railway Strikes

Nothing is more ungentlemanly than
Exaggeration, causing needless pain.
It's worse than spitting, and it stamps a man
Deservedly with other men's disdain.
Weigh human actions carefully. Explain
The worst of them with charity. Mayhap
There were two sides to that affair of Cain,
And Judas was a tolerable chap.

This sort of recklessness has laid a ban
(Most properly!) upon the works of Paine,
And should in decency condemn the clan
Of mean detractors, like the half-insane
And filthy Swift, Elijah, and again
The hare-brained Dante with his snarl and yap.
No life, however warped, was lived in vain,
And Judas was a tolerable chap.

Benedict Arnold doubtless had a plan
For profiting his country. It is plain
That nothing but the voice of slander can
Have poisoned such a man as Charlemagne
Against the martyred Ganelon in Spain.
We know that Dreyfus fell into a trap - 
Which also may be true of poor Bazaine - 
And Judas was a tolerable chap.

Prince, even you are hardly so inane
As not to understand the sad mishap
Befallen those who run the railway train -
And Judas was a tolerable chap.

Hilaire Belloc


Had the bard been reading this thread today, I imagine that the Envoi (the
last quatrain of the ballade) might have read:

Committee members quite devoid of brain,
Your regulations are a load of crap.
We play fit non-jumps, as should be quite plain -
And Judas was a tolerable chap.

David Burn
London, England