Compiled by London swaminathan

Date: 2 JULY 2018

Time uploaded in London –   7-10 AM (British Summer Time)

Post No. 5171

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A story of Isadora Duncan’s:-
At the hotel Trianon D’ Annuncio had a gold fish which he loved. It was in a wonderful crystal bowl and D’Annunzio used to feed it and talk to it. The gold fish would agitate it’s fins and open and shut its mouth as though to answer him.

One day when i was staying at Trianon I said to the maitre d’hotel
Where is the gold fish of D’ Annunzio.?

Ah, Madam, sorrowful story!
D’Annuncio went to Italy and told us to take care of it.
The gold fish, he said, is so near to my heart. It is a symbol of my happiness! And he kept telegraphing
How is my beloved Adolphus?

One day Adolphus swam a little slowly round the bowl and ceased ask for D’Annuncio. I took it and threw it out of window. But there came a telegram from D’Annunzio
“Feel Adolphus is not well”.
I wired back Adolphus dead; died last night.
D’Annuncio  replied ‘Bury him in the garden. Arrange his grave’.
So I took a sardine and wrapped it in silver paper and buried it in the garden and put a cross
Here lies Adolphus

D’Annuncio  returned ‘Where is the grave of my Adolphus?
I showed him the grave in the garden and he brought many flowers to it and stood for a long time weeping tears upon it

((General Gabriele D’Annunzio, Prince of Montenevoso, Duke of Gallese OMS CMG MVM(Italian pronunciation: [ɡabriˈɛːle danˈnuntsjo]; 12 March 1863 – 1 March 1938), sometimes spelled d’Annunzio,^[2] was an Italian writer, poet, journalist, playwright and soldier during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and later political life from 1914 to 1924. He was often referred to under the epithets Il Vate (“the Poet”)^[3] or Il Profeta (“the Prophet”).))

Xxx

Edward W.Bok told :-
“I was asked to come to a breakfast at Oscar Wilde’s house, and noticed as I sat down that next to me, at my left had been placed a man instead of the usual rotation. I turned to my left to find my neighbor had pushed his chair back from the table about three feet, and buried his chin in his shirt bosom and was reaching forth for his eatable s and practically eating them from his lap, his cup resting upon on his knee. There was something familiar about the features of my neighbor who was eating in the most grotesque fashion I ever saw and yet I couldn’t place him. I looked for his place card, but I could see none. So I shoved back my chair and tried to engage him in conversation. But I was not rewarded by even a glance. When I asked a question I received either no answer at all or a grunt. After a few heroic efforts, I gave up the struggle.

At the close of the breakfast I asked Wilde,
Who in the world was that chap on my left?
I know, returned Wilde, I saw your valiant struggle. He gets that way once in a while, and this morning happened to be one of those whiles. That was Whistler!

((James Abbott McNeill Whistler (/ˈwɪslər/; July 10, 1834^{[1][2][3][4][5]} – July 17, 1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo “art for art’s sake“. His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.))

Xxx

Alexander Pope said,

“Dean Swift has an old blunt way that is mistaken by strangers for ill nature: it is so odd that there is no describing it but by facts. I will tell you one that first comes into my head.
One evening John Gay and I went to see him. You know how intimately we were all acquainted. On our coming in, “Heyday , gentleman “ (says the doctor) what is the meaning of this visit?

How come you two to  leave all the great lads that you are so fond of, to come here to see a poor dean?
Because we would rather see you than any of them.
Aye, anyone that did not know you so well so well as I do might believe you. But since you have come, I must get some supper for you, I suppose.

No doctor, we have supped already
Supped already? Why it’s not eight o clock yet . That is very strange, but if you had not supped, I must have got something for you. Let me see what should i have had?
A couple of lobsters? Ay that would have done very well, two shillings, tarts a shilling. But you will drink a glass of wine with me, though you supped so much before your usual time, only to spare my pocket.
No we had rather talk with you than drink with you ,
But if you had supped with me, as in all reason you ought to have done, you must then have drank with me. A bottle of wine, two shillings. Two and two is four, and one is five. Just two and six pence a piece
There Pope, there is a half a crown for you, and there is another for you, Gay,

sir, for I won’t save anything by you I am determined

This was all said and done with his usual seriousness on such occasions and in spite of everything we could say to contrary, he actually obliged us to take the money.”

((Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish^[1] satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.^[2]

Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language,^[1] and is less well known for his poetry.))

Xxx SUBHAM xxx