And perhaps if you had condescended and flattered your enemies they would be your friends today.

Keep your friends clothed and use your enemy's clothier?

*********

And, if I accede not to your valued advice by acclaiming not your talents and your virtues, then you will judge me recalcitrant and animated by the negative emotions you have already perceived in my limericks, so that even if I should labor to extirpate from my rhyme any trace of angst, you will judge my output still tainted by ignoble pride, and your judging of my rhyme will be the harsher for it.

- and -

...so long as that flowering of mind is not befouled by some unprovoked invective or innuendo or injustice directed against me personally, or against anyone else.

Not to be hyper-critical (or anything similar) but these two statements, even as they bounce off one another, carry the weight of an 'ell-uv-a-lot-a assumptions.

********

I have no enemies here, themilum.

Given this to be true, doncha think the subject would be better served approached in the place where *they are?

Just a thought.