TWO CHARACTERS
THAN Lord de Vaux there’s no man sooner sees
Whatever at a glance is visible;
What is not, he can never see at all.
Quick-witted is he, versatile, seizing points,
He’ll see them all successively, distinctly,
But never solving questions. Vain he is;
It is his pride to see things on all sides;
Which best to do he sets them on their corners.
Present before him arguments by scores,
Bearing diversely on the affair in hand,
Yet never two of them can see together,
Or gather, blend, and balance what he sees
To make up one account; a mind it is
Accessible to reason’s subtlest rays,
And many enter there, but none converge;
It is an army with no general,
An arch without a key-stone. Then the other,
Good Martin Blondel-Vatre: he is rich
In nothing else but difficulties and doubts.
You shall be told the evil of your scheme,
But not the scheme that’s better. He forgets
That policy, expecting not clear gain,
Deals ever in alternatives. He’s wise
In negatives, is skilful at erasures,
Expert in stepping backward, an adept
At auguring eclipses. But admit
His apprehensions, and demand, what then?
And you shall find you’ve turned the blank leaf over.
Henry Taylor.