The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02Stevenson, Robert Louis
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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
of the "Death of Nelson"; and it was odd and eerie to hear the chorus
breathe feebly from all sorts of dark corners, and "this day has done
his dooty" rise and fall and be taken up again in this dim _inferno_, to
an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows and the rattling
spray-showers overhead.
All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted
the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied.
There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful
nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of
surprising clearness of conviction on the highest problems. He had gone
nearly beside himself on the Sunday, because of a general backwardness
to indorse his definition of mind as "a living, thinking substance which
cannot be felt, heard, or seen"--nor, I presume, although he failed to
mention it, smelt. Now he came forward in a pause with another
contribution to our culture.
"Just by way of change," said he, "I'll ask you a Scripture riddle.
There's profit in them too," he added ungrammatically.
This was the riddle--
C and P
Did agree
To cut down C;
But C and P
Could not agree
Without the leave of G.
All the people cried to see
The crueltie
Of C and P.
Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo! We were a long
while over the problem, shaking our heads and gloomily wondering how a
man could be such a fool; but at length he put us out of suspense and
divulged the fact that C and P stood for Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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