No Flowers by Request
If a statement is untrue, it is not the more respectable because
it has been said in Latin. We owe the war, directly, no doubt, to
the Kaiser, but indirectly to the Roman idiot who said, "Si vis
pacem, para bellum." Having mislaid my Dictionary of Quotations I
cannot give you his name, but I have my money on him as the
greatest murderer in history.
Yet there have always been people who would quote this classical
lie as if it were at least as authoritative as anything said in
the Sermon on the Mount. It was said a long time ago, and in a
strange language--that was enough for them. In the same way they
will say, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." But I warn them solemnly
that it will take a good deal more than this to stop me from
saying what I want to say about the recently expired month of
February.
I have waited purposely until February was dead. Cynics may say
that this was only wisdom, in that a damnatory notice from me
might have inspired that unhappy month to an unusually brilliant
run, out of sheer wilfulness. I prefer to think that it was good
manners which forbade me to be disrespectful to her very face. It
is bad manners to speak the truth to the living, but February is
dead. De mortuis nil nisi veritas.
The truth about poor February is that she is the worst month of
the year. But let us be fair to her.
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