James Kenneth Stephen

James Kenneth Stephen

James Kenneth Stephen (25 February 1859 – 3 February 1892) was an English poet, and tutor to Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

Quotes

• There were two good fellows I used to know.
    —How distant it all appears!
  We played together in football weather,
    And messed together for years:
  Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead
    So long that he's hardly missed
  Save by us, who messed with him years ago:
    But we're all in the old School List.
  • "The Old School List". Quo Musa Tendis? (1891)

Lapsus Calami (1891)

1st ed. (April 1891)

• Will there never come a season
  Which shall rid us from the curse?
  Of a prose which knows no reason
  And an unmelodious verse:
  When the world shall cease to wonder
  At the genius of an Ass,
  And a boy's eccentric blunder
  Shall not bring success to pass:
  When mankind shall be delivered
  From the clash of magazines,
  And the inkstand shall be shivered
  Into countless smithereens:
  When there stands a muzzled stripling,
  Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
  When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
  And the Haggards Ride no more.
  • "To R. K."

• In short, if your body or mind
    Or your soul or your purse come to grief,
  You need only get drunk, and you'll find
    Complete and immediate relief.
  • "Drinking Song"
  • First published in The Reflector (January 1891)

4th ed. (August 1891)

• To see Good Tennis! What divine joy
  Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ?
  Let other people play at other things;
  The King of Games is still the Game of Kings.
  • "Parker's Piece" (19 May 1891)

• I do not want to see that girl again:
  I did not like her: and I should not mind
  If she were done away with, killed, or ploughed.
  She did not seem to serve a useful end:
  And certainly she was not beautiful.
  • "Men and Women", I: "In the Backs"

• Republic of the West,
    Enlightened, free, sublime,
  Unquestionably best
    Production of our time.
  • "England and America", I: "On a Rhine Steamer"

External links

• Encyclopedic article on James Kenneth Stephen on Wikipedia
• Media related to James Kenneth Stephen on Wikimedia Commons
• Works related to Author:James Kenneth Stephen on Wikisource