Dr. Robert Bridges (the Poet-Laureate) writes to say that, having given special study to the hexameter, he was much interested to find that the measure now in vogue amongst bishops was that of six feet and over. He hoped to treat the subject exhaustively in his forthcoming treatise on Ecclesiastical Prosody.
Colonel L. C. Amery, M.P., strongly deprecated the attempt to identify excessive height with extreme efficiency. In the election to Fellowships at All Souls no height limit was imposed. Napoleon and the late Lord Roberts were both small men, and he believed that the remarkable elusiveness displayed by Colonel Lawrence in the War was greatly facilitated by his diminutive stature. The testimony of literature throughout the ages was almost unanimous in its condemnation of giants. He had never heard of a small ogre. On the subject of Shakespeare's height he could not speak with assurance, but Keats was only just over five feet. Jumbomania, or the worship of mammoth dimensions, was a modern disease. Far better was the philosophy crystallised in such immortal sayings as "Love me little, love me long," and "Infinite riches in a little room."
Mr. Mallaby-Deeley, M.P., observed that, man being an imitative animal and bishops being regarded by many as good examples, there seemed to him a serious danger of an epidemic of what he might call Brobdingnagitis. Fortunately the results would not be immediately apparent, otherwise he would be compelled to raise his tariff for cheap suits. A rise of six inches in the average height of his customers would throw out all his calculations and eat up the modest margin of profit which he now allowed himself.
A DISTURBER OF THE PEACE.
Entente Policeman (to Germany Militant). "ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THAT STUFF OFF OR MUST I DO IT FOR YOU?"
