WEBVTT

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The first poem I'll read
is from untitled subjects

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and it's about the prime
minister of England,

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who might be said to be the
only real prime minister

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in the 19th century.

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Melbourne was really a prime
minister of the 18th century.

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Dizzy, Dizzy was really scarcely
a prime minister at all.

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He was a glorious public figure.

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As you know, he was the popular
prime minister with the queen.

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He was the one Victoria liked.

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He knew how to make
Victoria feel adored.

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And she liked to feel adored.

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The prime minister
that interests

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me in the 19th century
though is Gladstone.

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A man who seems to be far
less of a figure to us.

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In any case, we find him in this
poem at the end of his life,

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well, past 80, on
the first of what

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was to be his indeed
his last vacation.

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The notion itself
didn't really exist yet.

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The date of the poem is 1897.

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We are on the Riviera
which had not yet

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become a really
celebrated watering place,

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but it was cheap.

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And he is there with
his secretary, probably

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John Morley, but not to any--

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I'm not sure who the
secretary is, he is not me.

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He is a foolish man.

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But concerned with his chief,
and he speaks first, it

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is his voice that we hear.

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The poem is preceded
by a remark--

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a remark of Gladstone's.

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Can you all hear me clearly?

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A remark of Gladstone's
to the effect

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that all he'd ever wanted was
an interval between the house,

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and the grave.

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Deeply desired.

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"In that summer, at Bordighera,
in a fashion somewhat agitated,

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he confided his dreams, haunted
by halls and lines of people--

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horrors, outright,
the frequent burden

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of which was a weak
old man, gradually

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bruised to death by clubs.

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What is politics in England,
John, but a long Khyber Pass.

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With all the misery of a
passage in, and no passage out.

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We were walking
the beach together,

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the air was sullen, all
this coast from Menton

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to Santa Margharita
one mild Miltonic hell.

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Where the welkin
glistens and reeks,

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every surface swelters
until Earth's face cracks,

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and only the sea is
whole, running high

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along the sand, huge green
masses of water shattering

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to mere foam at our feet.

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In this heat, who would
expect such a sea?

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Mr. G delights in it, has
a passion for its sound,

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would like to have it in his
ears, all day, all night.

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It is the truth of Dante's
Banquet my boy, where

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the noble soul is said to
be like a good mariner,

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for he, when he draws near
port, lowers his sails

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and enters softly
with gentle steerage.

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It is his way of
speaking I can catch,

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though I am separated from
him in the order of ideas

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by an interval that
must be called a gulf.

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Forgive me if I go too
far, I am simply a funnel.

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My local memory has
always been vivid.

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I seem never to have forgotten
the circumstance, a scene,

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a single syllable for
all my personal rank

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as a vanishing quantity.

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Why else should Mr. G
have kept me with him

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past his years of employment?

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Years of parliamentary
meddle and muddle.

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In the long run,
John, we are all dead.

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Memoirs are as hateful
to me as monuments.

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But a memory like
yours is another thing.

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Striding down the
beach, desecrated

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by gold-necked bottles, lobster
claws, and bits of veal pie,

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he would ask me to
prod him into reckoning

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of what has been his life.

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88 years have deterred
none of his senses,

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save perhaps that of reality.

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The man is a great white
rock with a little moss

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on it, just so, and the
green sea water beneath.

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One word of mine suffices to
release that affluent language

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he bestows so effortlessly.

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And once, indeed, he
admitted speculating

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why the room seemed
to fall silent,

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only to discover I
had stopped talking.

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It was a genuine discovery.

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The word, this time, with
some trifling bon mot

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of mine on the heir
apparent's appearance.

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That was enough.

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Three decades of her Majesty's
crisp, incessant orders,

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John, have convinced me
quite of the unfailing, the--

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shall I say-- hereditary
antipathy of our sovereigns

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to their heirs apparent.

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The single time I dined with
the prince and his mother,

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a swan, very white and tender,
stuffed with truffles, as well,

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was the best company at table.

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And the queen's sole remark to
her son and myself was the dogs

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behaved better to the
furniture than in the past.

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The sole improvement, quite
certain, in modern times.

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Ah, my boy, we are well
away from balmorality here.

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The terrible tartanitis which
overtook the throne in my time,

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hard upon the mort d'Albert.

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A remarkable statesman, mind
you, but the stock was weak.

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You recall a cousin,
a Ludwig of Bavaria,

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talked with his eyes tight shut.

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Drowned himself in
the ornamental lake

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with his doctor.

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No stamina in the
family, though the queen

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is of the family and endures.

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Her words to me when I took
my leave, simple perfection

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of perfect simplicity.

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Often, Mr. Gladstone, I
believe, after a period

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of strenuous reform, a
moment comes quite suddenly

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when the British people
tires of being, ah, improved.

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God, John.

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Thank God I'm quit
of such encounters.

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And then, as we proceeded to the
pier, from which a superb view

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might be had, waves hurling
themselves over each other

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to the rocks, he took
from an inner pocket,

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with a sharp glance
into my eyes,

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a green Morocco notebook,
quite glossy with wear.

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I was but 18, John, when
I entered these words.

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Judge, if I have kept faith
with these emotions of mine.

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The diary was in his
backhand, tiny script

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unchanged subsequently.

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On board the Queen of Scotland,
they rose to breakfast,

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but uneasily.

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Attempted reading first
book of Herodotus,

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not too unwell to reflect.

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Returned to bed, then
translated a few lines of Dante,

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also beauties of Shakespeare.

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By evening, high wind blowing,
quite ill, though still in bed,

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yet could not help admiring
the white crests of the waves,

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even as I stood at the
cabin's low casement.

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He took it from me with
a gesture toward the sea,

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and we walked on, Mr G. gloating
in the huge force, the swell

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and beat of the rollers on the
shore like a titanic pulse.

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As they ran bounding toward
us with bright persuasions

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of grace and power,
he wondered if we

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had not more and better
words for the sea

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than the French language,
flot, vague, onde, lame,

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as against breaker, billow,
comber, bore, eager, roller,

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swell, and surge.

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He quite shouted the
words into the tide.

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I have never seen him so happy."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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