27.07.2009 Young Doctor Serfontein Poem by Margaret Alice

Checked the long-awaited book on my hero
Dr Serfontein, even more macho than James
Bond himself, more handsome also, with
high moral principles, full of integrity

Excitedly looking for my favourite passage,
oh, NO! - a moron, a complete and utter idiot
has removed it; the pivot of the book, left all
the stupid, non-essential bits

Deleted the part that became my lodestar
ideal: “Beauty is not an inherent feature of
anything, beautiful interprettation takes
place in the observer’s mind”

Bought it for this one sentence; abridged
version is meaningless, the most wonderful
insight destroyed by an over-zealous editor –
I always knew editing was an evil deed!

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Theunis Krogh 'Jong Doktor Serfontein' Keurboslaan-
series Human & Rousseau 2009 - NB Uitgewers Kaapstad

An older edition still contains my favourite passage:

JL van Schaik Beperk, Pretoria 1973, p.17

Martin says: 'For those two oafs it was as in the poem:
‘But the fool he called her his Lady Fair’.'

Mr Schoobee answers: 'Such feeling derives from the man
himself, not from what he sees in front of him …'

22 July 2009