PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IENJOY desultory conversation, since it leads to chance remarks and since chance remarks may often tempt one to alter the furniture of one's mind. We are so apt, as we become deeper and deeper engulfed in the fog of middle-age, to allow the hat-stand and the dumb-waiter to remain where they stood in father's day and to forget that to move them to the other side of the hall or dining-room is a rejuvenating process and one which shifts accumu- lated dust. I was glad therefore when a golfing friend of mine remarked that all great statesmanship, as all great poetry, had been directed and inspired by selfish resent- ments and egoistic passions. I said, " Not at all. Some of the greatest poems in our language have been written about other people." He said, " What great poems?" I said, " Memorial verses, for instance." That started the argument. * *
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