Faggot Forefathers Week Fifty

“The only difference

between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the

intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted..”

Osbert Sitwell

(December 6, 1892 – 1969)

Sign: Sagittarius

Gay English writer known for his novels, such as Triple Fugue (1924), The Man Who Lost Himself (1929), and his four-volume autobiography. As a member of a wealthy and well connected family, Osbert Sitwell enjoyed much publicity and was known amongst literary circles to mixed review.

Though he completed his military service honorably, Sitwell could not shoot well and hated the sounds of guns firing.

The long war had ended.
Its miseries had grown faded.
Deaf men became difficult to talk to,
Heroes became bores.
Those alchemists
Who had converted blood into gold
Had grown elderly.
But they held a meeting,
Saying,
‘We think perhaps we ought
To put up tombs
Or erect altars
To those brave lads
Who were so willingly burnt,
Or blinded,
Or maimed,
Who lost all likeness to a living thing,
Or were blown to bleeding patches of flesh
For our sakes.
It would look well.
Or we might even educate the children.’
But the richest of these wizards
Coughed gently;
And he said:

‘I have always been to the front
-In private enterprise-,
I yield in public spirit
To no man.
I think yours is a very good idea
-A capital idea-
And not too costly . . .
But it seems to me
That the cause for which we fought
Is again endangered.
What more fitting memorial for the fallen
Than that their children
Should fall for the same cause?’

Rushing eagerly into the street,
The kindly old gentlemen cried
To the young:
‘Will you sacrifice
Through your lethargy
What your fathers died to gain ?
The world must be made safe for the young!’
And the children
Went. . . .