So is also:
Dead honour risen out-does love at last.
That also is Poetry, though in the more formal manner. But that last line has this drawback about it; which is, that only those who have lived to a certain age and in a certain way can know the truth of it; and that those who have not lived the truth of it will not make much of it anyhow. Young people will make nothing of it, nor those who have become old blamelessly, of whom a great number are to be found to this day in the outlying parts and among seafaring men.
But I say that truth is no bar to poetry, nor bad verse to truth either. And I say that this half-line of horribly bad verse, "kind hearts are more than coronets," is as true as true.
Which of you, O my companions, having drunk the wine of this world and half-despaired would not rather fetch up in your dereliction against a kind heart than a coronet? I don't say the two combined are to be despised. I only ask: Which of you having strictly to choose in the dark passage of this life between: (a) a coronet with a bad heart; (b) a kind heart without a coronet—wealth being equal—would not choose (b)? I would. So would you all. I cannot answer for women, but as Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said, "I know my own people," and the bearded ones (or those who would be bearded but for the detestable necessity of shaving) will with one moaning voice reply: "Kind Hearts!... No, thank you; I do not feel inclined for a Coronet this evening; bring me a Kind Heart."
Which of you, O my brethren, having suffered the things of this world and finding yourself sitting lonely on the bank of a stream in some forest place would not desire to have approach him, rather than a shallow, silly, boring, untenacious, stupid, cranky, ill-tempered, nagging, sour, pinched, haggard woman with a little coronet on her wig, a warm, a just, an experienced, a tender, an at-the-right-time-silent, a speaking-the-unexpected-word-of-salvation-at-the-Heaven-sent-moment, true, profoundly-loving, sufficiently admiring, comforting, regally beautiful woman with a kind heart? Which of you would not leave the first to approach the second? (Supposing, of course, equal incomes.)
It is as true a thing as ever was said. But it was said badly. He ought not to have attempted it in metre until he was feeling in the mood.
I can hear arguments on the other side. A coronet is more amenable to the will of man. You can buy a coronet. You cannot buy a kind heart. To call kind hearts "better" than coronets, therefore, is like calling fine weather "better" than a good boat. For the sea the boat is more important than the weather. You can guarantee the one, you can't the other. You can make sure of your coronet, but not of your kind heart.
Again, a coronet does not change or fade—money being always taken for granted. It is incorruptible. It is not subject to our poor mortal years; but what it is on the brow of the infant, that it remains on the senile and wrinkled front of him last ticked off to answer questions in the House of Lords; but a Kind Heart!... Oh! Chronos!
Again, a coronet is heritable. A kind heart hardly so. A coronet is definable. All are agreed upon it. It is there or it is not there, and that's an end of it. Not so the Kind Heart. One having seized on a companion for ever, and all on account of a Kind Heart, many will say, "I can't for the life of me discover what he (she) saw in her (him) to make him (her) marry her (him)." But no one ever says that of a coronet. They may wonder what the coronet saw in the non-coronet, but never what the non-coronet saw in the coronet. When the fellow (or the wench) mates upwards with a coronet everybody knows why; it's plain sailing and there can be no dispute. A coronet, I say, is something objective, substantial, real. It is made of ashwood covered with plush, it has spikes and each spike a ball on the top. But who shall define a Kind Heart? It is one thing to one man, one to another; it is elusive; it is all in the mind like the Metaphysician's Donkey.