In that case, Viennese, take the Danube! Parisians, take the steamboat, and people of Petersburg, the pericladnoi, and say these simple words: To Georgia!
Ah! ... but I must announce to you in advance a deep humiliation. If you should take to Georgia one of the largest noses in Europe, the nose of Alcide Tousez, of Schiller, at the boundary of Tiflis, they would look at you in surprise and say: “Poor man ... he lost his nose on the way! What a pity!”
When you entered the first street.... (What am I saying!) ... when you passed the first house of the suburbs, you would be convinced that all the Greek, Roman, German, French, Spanish, and even Neapolitan noses, would wish to hide in shame, in the depths of the earth, at sight of the nose of Georgia.
Ah!... Good Heavens ... the beautiful noses of Georgia! The robust noses, the magnificent noses! And there are noses of all shapes; round, large, long, wide. There are noses of all colors: White, rose, red, and violet. There are noses mounted with rubies, others mounted with pearls. I even saw one mounted with turquoises. You have only to press them between your fingers and the little one will spout a pint of wine of Kaketie.
In Georgia a law of Vacktang IV had abolished the unit measure; it has kept only the nose. Rich weaves are measured by the nose. They say: “I brought seventeen noses of tarmalama to make a dressing gown, seven noses of Kanaos for making trousers, one nose and a half of sateen for a cravat.”
And they say that the women of Georgia consider this measure superior to all others, especially the measures of Europe.”
Supreme lyric poetry (despite Robbie Burns) belongs to the Orient. It can be produced only by a race with a long past, a race that has warred much, enjoyed much, suffered much, loved much, made and unmade gods. Such mighty things go to weaving of the tissue-thin lyric.
Lord Byron’s poetic ancestry goes far back to the sagamakers of Iceland. He is child of the Nibelungs. Byron was the last fine flowering of that which was England, for Great England now is of the past. Slowly she has been drifting with the rest of the world toward the piled up civilizations of yester year.
The slow, ripening of time must go to making of lyric poetry. I do not believe many will contradict me when I state that Heine, Hafiz, Anacreon, and Tu Fu, are the supreme lyric poets of the world—the Jew, the Persian, the Greek, and the Man of China.