Six Degrees of Separation from Shelley
In the last year of her life I dined with Diana Cooper Who told me she thought the best thing to do with the poor Was to kill them. [think her tongue was in her cheek But with that much plastic surgery it was hard to tell.
As a child she had sat on the knee of George Meredith, More than forty years after he published Modern Love. Though she must have been as pretty as any poppet Who challenged the trousers of Dowson or Lewis Carroll, We can bet Meredith wasn't as modern as that. By then the old boy wouldn't have felt a twinge Even had he foreseen she would one day arrive In Paris with an escort of two dozen Spitfires.
The book lamented his marriage to one of the daughters Of Peacock. Peacock when young rescued Shelley From a coma brought on through an excess of vegetarianism By waving a steak under his sensitive nose.
Shelley never quite said that the best thing to do with the rich Was to kill them, but he probably thought so.
Whether the steak was cooked or raw I can't remember. I should, of course. I was practically there: The blaze of his funeral pyre on the beach at night Was still in her eyes. At her age I hope to recall The phial of poison she carried but never used Against the day there was nothing left to live for.
Clive James
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