[Ansteorra] "And so we have gotten our lesson, and we ought to receive it with gratitude."*

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012, Peter Schorn wrote:
> *Kipling.  From one of his poems about the Boer War.  In that poem,
> as well as most of his other works arising from that conflict,
> Kipling has one overriding message for his fellow Englishmen, which
> may be summarized as:
>
> "Stop being such bleeding whiney old beardos and grow up."
>
> Kipling's relevance to our time is sadly underrated.

I had a hard time to find the footnote mark -- I didn't think to check
the subject line.

> Subject: [Ansteorra] "And so we have gotten our lesson, and we ought
>     to receive it with gratitude."*

I had a bit of a time finding that.  "Have gotten" is an Americanism;
"have got" is British.  (The Germans *thought* they had Gott, but He
proved Himself like He who marvelously made all and can unmake all
when He liseth.)

The actual line is
"And so we got our lesson: and we ought to accept it with gratitude."
But I prefer the jollier (!) line
"We have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right!"

Rudyard Kipling, "The Lesson".
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_lesson.htm has the poem.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_lesson1.htm has noted on the poem, and
one extra stanza that appeared only in manuscript and one source,
and which I think is the best stanza in the poem due to its cleverness
with wordplay:

     We relied on convictions that did not convict and impressions that
         did not impress,

Danyell de Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com