There is much virtue in that `if.'
But that, as Mr. Kipling would say, is another story.
Si non e` vero, etc.
or (lighter style)
We fancy we recognise here the hand of Mr. Benjamin Trovato.
Not less inevitable are such parallelisms as:--
Like Topsy, perhaps it `growed.'
Like the late Lord Beaconsfield on a famous occasion, `on the side of
the angels.'
Like Brer Rabbit, `To lie low and say nuffin.'
Like Oliver Twist, `To ask for more.'
Like Sam Weller's knowledge of London, `extensive and peculiar.'
Like Napoleon, a believer in `the big battalions.'
Nor let us forget Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric
laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly
inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned
good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the
wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things
evil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's monster, Macaulay's schoolboy,
Lord Burleigh's nod, Sir Boyle Roche's bird, Mahomed's coffin, and
Davy Jones's locker.
A melancholy catalogue, is it not? But it is less melancholy for you
who read it here, than for them whose existence depends on it, who
draw from it a desperate means of seeming to accomplish what is
impossible.
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