A Timeless Tale
by Lindsay Perigo
(Originally broadcast on the Politically Incorrect Show)
Today a tale of two men, vastly different in nature & stature, separated by two hundred years, but both to their own selves true. I shan't belabour the point of the anecdotes; they are self-explanatory & self-sufficient. The first man, until the other day, was known to me only as Richard, someone who called me on air occasionally from Hawkes Bay to report on his looming court case for marijuana offences, the ongoing shenanigans with the local constabulary, & his battle against our evil drug laws. I received a letter from him the other day, headed up "Cell 67, Hillary House, Waikeria Prison, Te Awamutu." He writes:
"Well I am now half way through my 'symbolic sentence' & what have I learned? That my principles are not for sale, even when the price is the removal of my freedom. People ask me, is the price worth it? And does anyone care? Well, Lindsay, here is my answer to those people. I still believe that over my mind & body I am master, & as long as I use no force on another, then the state has no right to enter. I will upon my release still stand up to be counted for this basic right of free men, for when you surrender this right to the state you are living in a state of tyranny. And if a man will surrender his principles for whatever price, then what does that man have left but a life barren of honour, & what lesson would this impart to his children except that all his principles & beliefs are for sale & that it is only the price that matters? And yes, my children care. They have learned in our house that our principles & beliefs are not for sale at any price."
My second anecdote concerns the musical titan Beethoven, one of the greatest geniuses of all time. He was special, & he knew it. Crusty convention he held in contempt. When a friend chided him for a series of parallel fifths in his music - in classical harmony an unforgivable sin - he demanded to know who exactly forbade parallel fifths, whereupon the friend rattled off a list of luminaries who did not admit parallel fifths. Said Beethoven with a wave of his hand: "Well, *I* admit them."
Now let me quote from an internet site dedicated to the great master:
"Although Mozart sassed his superiors now and then, Beethoven was the first composer to really let the aristocracy have it between the eyes. He wrote most of his Fourth Symphony in the fall of 1806 while a guest at the summer castle of Prince Lichnowsky. One evening, while the Prince was entertaining, he assured his visitors that the great Beethoven would play the piano for them. Beethoven, however, did not like being treated as a toy puppet, and refused. The Prince pled ever more urgently, desperate not to be humiliated before his rich friends, and finally tried joking that he would have to put Beethoven under house arrest. At this Beethoven blew his stack, called the Prince several unprintable names, and stormed out of the castle. He stomped through a rainstorm to the closest town, where he spent the night at the home of the Prince's physician, Dr. Weiser. The next morning he sent this note to his former host: 'Prince! What you are, you are by accident of birth. What I am, I am through myself. There have been and will be thousands of princes. There is only one Beethoven.'"
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