Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (July 10, 1875 – March 30, 1956) was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early 20th century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics.

Sourced

Clerihews: Biography for Beginners (1905)

• The art of Biography
  Is different from Geography.
  Geography is about maps,
  But Biography is about chaps.

• Sir Christopher Wren
  Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
  If anyone calls
  Say I am designing St. Paul's."

• John Stuart Mill,
  By a mighty effort of will,
  Overcame his natural bonhomie
  And wrote "Principles of Political Economy."

• What I like about Clive
  Is that he is no longer alive.
  There is a great deal to be said
  For being dead.

• Sir Humphrey Davy
  Abominated gravy.
  He lived in the odium
  Of having discovered sodium.

• Edward the Confessor
  Slept under the dresser.
  When that began to pall,
  He slept in the hall.

• It was a weakness of Voltaire's
  To forget to say his prayers,
  And one which to his shame
  He never overcame.

Trent's Last Case (1912)

Full text at Wikisource

• Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely? When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear; it gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity of such wealth as this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honor. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of business as if the earth, too, shuddered under a blow.
  • Chapter I: "Bad news"

• Can you understand the soul of a man who never hesitated to take steps that would have the effect of hoodwinking people, who would use every trick of the markets to mislead, and who was at the same time scrupulous never to utter a direct lie on the most insignificant matter? Manderson was like that, and he was not the only one. I suppose you might compare the state of mind to that of a soldier who is personally a truthful man, but who will stick at nothing to deceive the enemy. The rules of the game allow it; and the same may be said of business as many business men regard it. Only with them it is always wartime.
  • Chapter XV: "Double Cunning"

• I can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in the operations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is bad Christianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivism too, unless I misunderstand that system.
  • Chapter XVI: "The Last Straw"

Clerihews: More Biography (1929)

• George the Third
  Ought never to have occurred.
  One can only wonder
  At so grotesque a blunder.

• Chapman & Hall
  Swore not at all.
  Mr Chapman's yea was yea,
  And Mr Hall's nay was nay.

Trent's Own Case (1936)

Co-authored by H. Warner Allen

• There are some places which, seen for the first time, yet seem to strike a chord of recollection. "I have been here before," we think to ourselves, "and this is one of my true homes." It is no mystery for those philosophers who hold that all which we shall see, with all which we have seen and are seeing, exists already in an eternal now; that all those places are home to us which in the pattern of our life are twisting, in past, present and future, tendrils of remembrance round our heart-strings.
  • Chapter XV: "Eunice Makes a Clean Breast of It"

• That is almost the definition of any friendship that is worthwhile — that we don't care a damn how you behave yourself.
  • Chapter XV: "Eunice Makes a Clean Breast of It"

External links

• Works by Edmund Clerihew Bentley at Project Gutenberg
• Illustrated Bibliography of 1st Editions
• A web page about Bentley, with some clerihews and some biographical information on Bentley himself