James Kenneth Stephen Quotes

“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.”

James Kenneth Stephen

Parker's Piece.

“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.”

James Kenneth Stephen

The Old School List.

“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.”

James Kenneth Stephen

Drinking Song.

“Republic of the West,
Enlightened, free, sublime,
Unquestionably best
Production of our time.”

James Kenneth Stephen

England and America.

“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.”

James Kenneth Stephen

In the Backs.

“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.”

James Kenneth Stephen

To R. K.