DINNER FOR TWELVE PLEASE, JAMES!
innumerable Ego books selects his ideal dinner party. I haven’t the book handy, but I remember being disgusted that he selected men only. Surely even if he finds women dull, he must admit that they are ornamental? And the male is so vain that he performs best for a female audience. So I am not going to repeat his mistake. Neither am I going to be lured into accepting the dull merely because they are great. It’s easy to turn down most of the soldiers and half the statesmen. Their ego would be even more objectionable than Agate’s. Alexander or Napoleon or Hitler might be all right by themselves; together they would be insufferable. I couldn’t afford to waste an invitation on Jack Dempsey or fa _______________--_____-| J m= AGATE in one of his
Strangler Lewis merely, to keep order. All the men would have to be grown up. Similarly with the philosophers. Unlike Agate I would bear in mind what I had got them together for. I wouldn’t invite Karl Marx to dine with Cleopatra because I know very well that they wouldn’t appreciate each other; and since it’s my party, Karl.would have to go. A dinner isn’t the place for sermons or any sort of high-minded monologue. I’d leave Kant and Nietszche and all the rest of them where they belong-closed up on the book-shelf. And with a regretful eye on Richard Burton, Wilde, Dr. Johnson, Nansen and Walter Raleigh; with a questionmark against Socrates, Li-Po and Charles Laughton; with a sigh for Helen of Troy, my wife, and Madame du Barry, my invitations go out to the following (I have arranged them round a not-too-big circular table, so that I can catch the cross-chat): Bob Hope Pompadour Queen Victoria Shakespeare Groucho Marx Greta Garbo Cleopatra | Host Voltaire Nell Gwynn Catherine the Great G. B. Shaw I leave it to readers to scratch up the menu, the wine-list, and the musical background. I’m off to swot up my Swedish.
ANTON
VOGT
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 233, 10 December 1943, Page 11
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337DINNER FOR TWELVE PLEASE, JAMES! New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 233, 10 December 1943, Page 11
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