When I think of these mighty men, lions in war,
sages in peace, not babblers and charlatans like the pigmies who now
occupy their places in Baghdad, but strong silent men, ruling an empire
on which the sun never set, my eyes fill with tears: my heart bursts
with emotion: I feel that to have lived but to the dawn of manhood in
their day, and then died for them, would have been a nobler and happier
lot than the ignominious ease of my present longevity.
ZOO. Longevity! [_she laughs_].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes, madam, relative longevity. As it is, I have
to be content and proud to know that I am descended from both those
heroes.
ZOO. You must be descended from every Briton who was alive in their
time. Dont you know that?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Do not quibble, madam. I bear their names, Bolge
and Bluebin; and I hope I have inherited something of their majestic
spirit. Well, they were born in these islands. I repeat, these islands
were then, incredible as it now seems, the centre of the British Empire.
When that centre shifted to Baghdad, and the Englishman at last returned
to the true cradle of his race in Mesopotamia, the western islands were
cast off, as they had been before by the Roman Empire.
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