In A.P. Herbert's enjoyable parody of Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Soho, there is, I think - unfortunately I no longer possess a copy but had a small part in it at school - the passage: 'Man, like a pebble on a glacier, moves imperceptibly but always down.' A.P. Herbert was not being serious, of course, but his words apply to some, perhaps most, of us, mentally, morally and physically as we grow older. Where, however, they are most obviously untrue is of people's careers. The typical politician, for instance, begins near the bottom before moving to a peak, or more usually a series of mountains or molehills, before going into decline. William Pitt the Younger is the great exception. Because of his parentage and abnormal abilities he began at the top.

LRB 1 August 1996 | PDF Download