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LAST WORDS
I regarded her, though, with the chivalrous eyes of a knight-errant on quest;
I may say I don't know that I ever felt prouder, old friend, of a conquest.
And when I've been made happy, I never have cared a brass farthing who knew it; I
Thank my stars I'm as free from mock-modesty, friend, as from vulgar fatuity.
You may see by my shortness of speech that my time's almost up: I perceive
That my new-fangled brevity strikes you: but don't—though the public will—grieve.
As it's sometimes my whim to be vulgar, it's sometimes my whim to be brief;
As when once I observed, after Heine, that 'she was a harlot, and I' (which is true) 'was a thief.'
