Good and Clever
If all the good people were clever,
And all clever people were good,
The world would be nicer than ever
We thought that it possibly could.
But somehow ’tis seldom or never
The two hit it off as they should,
The good are so harsh to the clever,
The clever, so rude to the good!
So friends, let it be our endeavour
To make each by each understood;
For few can be good, like the clever,
Or clever, so well as the good.
Elizabeth Wordsworth (1840 – 1932)
A classic poem identifying the two groups of people – the good and the clever, so here is a question – in what sense are the good clever and in what sense are the clever good? Goodness knows the clever response.
The Good – of upright and virtuous character
The Clever – demonstrating mental agility and creativity
I don’t like putting people into categories; giving dominant labels that colour other aspects of the indidual. And the confusion in the last two lines gives voice to a cross classification – a nice way of obviating the way we view people.
Dame Elizabeth Wordsworth was the great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth. She was the Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, from 1878-1909, when she founded St. Hugh’s Hall, a college for poor female undergraduates, in Norham Gardens, North Oxford.
my word in your ear 