BLACKTHORNThe price of existence is eternal warfare.39 Speaking as an Irishman, I prefer to say: The price of eternal warfare is existence. And melancholy as existence is, the price is well worth paying. Is there a Government? Then I'm agin it! To Hell with the bloody English! "O FRATER PERDURABO, how unworthy are these sentiments!" "D'ye want a clip on the jaw?"40 |
COMMENTARY (Π)Frater P. continues the subject of Chapter 79. He pictures himself as a vigorous, reckless, almost rowdy Irishman. He is no thin-lipped prude, to seek salvation in unmanly self-abnegation; no Creeping Jesus, to slink through existence to the tune of the Dead March in Saul; no Cremerian Callus to warehouse his semen in his cerebellum. "New Thoughtist" is only Old Eunuch writ small. Paragraph 2 gives the very struggle for life, which disheartens modern thinkers, as a good enough reason for existence. Paragraph 5 expresses the sorrow of the modern thinker, and paragraph 6 Frater P.'s suggestion for replying to such critics. NOTES (39) ISVD, the foundation scil. of the universe = 80 = P, the letter of Mars. (40) P also means "a mouth". |