Well, pop goes another friendship - or one that apparently did not exist, since we had not, I am told, even the foundation of one.

Still this is the price one pays for devotion to the Truth.

It is extraordinary how everybody teaches their children always to tell the truth, while habitually giving bad example by living, cheating, stealing, swindling, etc., etc.

Then they have the gall to complain that their children don't respect them!

(Let me say that I am not talking about my own parents here; it is a general assertion that sprang from another train of thought.)

I have written this:



TRUTH.


No, there shall be no compromise on Truth,

Not though the sky should, loud with peals of thunder,

Fall to the earth, crash land and sea asunder,

Mankind in torment die, both men in youth



And men in age lie screaming flat in pain

Through their last agony: not though men rally

To Error's vast battalions forth to sally:

Truth shall not be denied, no, not for gain



Of comfort, friends, gold, peace, security,

Or whatsoever else! So they shall hate

Us - what do you expect?! - But we are free,

Devoted to the Truth; of thralls their fate:



But they prefer their slavery, forsooth.

No, there shall be no compromise on Truth.



(Feast of St Augustine, 2010.)