ARNOLD BENNETT(1867-1931)

Based on such petty mistakes lives

end, on a low note and with

some embarrassment; cause of

death: A misadventure. Drinking

tap water in a time of typhoid;

perhaps a few joking words for

the waiter trying to intervene,

in the manner of the French

prince who said, that "No son

of a King of France ever died of plague."

Challenging fate, it accepts.

Thinking normal still that poor

people die in their thousands each day

like you did, drinking

death with water, we

consider yet that you should

have died (yes)

"According to your station." But,

perhaps, you did; born in the

poisoned land of foul air and foul

water, it was just an encounter

in Samarra, postponed. A

man carries his fate with him,

a coiled snake.

11.11.1918