In Memoriam

 Love Note to a Playwright by Phyllis McGinley

Perhaps the literary man

I most admire among my betters

Is Richard Brinsley Sheridan,

Who, viewing life as more than letters,

Persisted, like a stubborn Gael,

In not acknowledging his mail.

They say he hardly ever penned

A proper "Yrs. received & noted,"

But spent what time he had to spend

Shaping the law that England voted,

Or calling, on his comic flute,

The tune for Captain Absolute.

Though chief of the prodigious wits

That Georgian taverns set to bubblin',

He did not answer Please Remits

Or scoldings from his aunts in Dublin

Or birthday messages or half

The notes that begged an autograph.

I hear it sent his household wild—

Became a sort of parlor fable—

The way that correspondence piled,

Mountainous, on his writing table,

While he ignored the double ring

And wouldn't answer anything;

Not scrawls from friends or screeds from foes

Or scribble from the quibble-lover

Or chits beginning "I enclose

Manuscript under separate cover,"

Or cards from people off on journeys,

Or formal statements from attorneys.

The post came in. He let it lie.

(All this biographers agree on.)

Especially he did not reply

To things that had R.S.V.P. on.

Sometimes for months he dropped no lines

To dear ones, or sent Valentines;

But, polishing a second act

Or coaxing kings to license Freedom,

Let his epistles wait. In fact,

They say he didn't even read'm.

The which, some mornings, seems to me

A glorious blow for Liberty.

Brave Celt! Although one must deplore

His manners, and with reason ample,

How bright from duty's other shore,

This moment, seems his bold example!

And would I owned in equal balance

His courage (and, of course, his talents),

Who, using up his mail to start

An autumn fire or chink a crevice,

Cried, "Letters longer are than art,

But vita is extremely brevis!"

Then, choosing what was worth the candle,

Sat down and wrote The School for Scandal.

—Phyllis McGinley