Nowadays most long novels are bad

Besides, nowadays most long novels are bad. It was different a hundred or two hundred years ago. Today life moves faster, its parts are less connected; one assumes of most interesting events and relations (however intense) that they will be of no greater length or complication than can be described in twenty or thirty pages.

A. Lurie, Real People (1969), Collected edition (1999), 375

The Hungarians are more honourable and cleaner infidels

The Hungarians are Protestants while the Austrians are Catholics. Therefore these two infidel groups are opposites to one another, despite their both being Christians. ... In short, though both are unbelievers without faith, the Hungarians are more honourable and cleaner infidels. They do not wash their faces every morning with their urine as the Austrians do, but wash their faces every morning with water as the Ottomans do.

Evliya Celebi, Book of Travels 7.3, ed. & tr. R.Dankoff & S. Kim, An Ottoman Traveller (2010), 230-31

As for coffee: it is an innovation

As for coffee: it is an innovation; it prevents sleep; it dulls the generative powers; and coffee houses are dens of sedition.

Evliya Celebi, Book of Travels 1.6, ed. & tr. R.Dankoff & S. Kim, An Ottoman Traveller (2010), 25

I have no enemies ... I've had them all shot

'Do you forgive your enemies?' a nineteenth century Duke of Valencia [this one] is asked on his deathbed in a famous Spanish anecdote. 'I have no enemies,' he retorts, 'I've had them all shot.'


J. Morris, Spain (1964. revised 1979), 47

She has a fatal weakness for the past

Party it is plain old-fashionedness that makes Spain feel so special. She has a fatal weakness for the past. When the French were building in the Gothic style, she was still building Romanesque. When they moved to the Renaissance, she was still building Gothic. She retained her medieval values when they had long been abandoned elsewhere in Europe, so at the Spanish universities in the eighteenth century they were still wondering whether Copernicus was right,  and anxiously debating whether sky was made of metal or fluid.

J. Morris, Spain (1964. revised 1979), 26

More often plunging helplessly downwards in a welter of despair and recrimination

Spanish geographers are very fond of elevation graphs - diagrams which, by cutting an imaginary slice through the Iberian Peninsula, show how its altitudes vary from sea to sea. If you apply this approach to the slab of Spanish history, you will find that though the graph is often bumpy, its general outline is all too sadly simple.From the beginning of history to the sixteenth century, the Spaniards gradually climbed towards the pinnacle of their success - hindered often by wars and invasions, but steadily accumulating wealth, culture, prestige, and unity. From the sixteenth century until our times, on the other hand, they have been constantly slithering downhill, sometimes bravely digging their heels in, more often plunging helplessly downwards in a welter of despair and recrimination. Spanish history does not form a happy pattern, but at least it looks symmetrical.

J. Morris, Spain (1964. revised 1979), 12

[Burke]

[The state] becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. Each contract of the particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society.

Individuals were tenants, not freeholders, of the political communities into which they had been born, by which they had been shaped and into which their descendants would be born in turn. From that insight sprang an ethic of stewardship, closer to today's Greens than to any conventional political party, and utterly at variance with the Trinity of Choice, Freedom and the Individual.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 199

I obviously agree with the author's and commentator's lines here. I find the identification of this approach with the Greens alone preposterous.

Democracy has never been a single monolithic entity available for export to all parts of the world

Democracy has never been a single monolithic entity available for export to all parts of the world, as George W. Bush and Tony Blair imagined. It is plural, not singular; it depends on tacit understandings of particular cultures as much as on formal rules. ... For Abraham Lincoln, democracy meant 'government of the people, by the people, for the people. For the British High Tory Leo Amery it meant 'government of the people, for the people, with but not by the people'.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 154

I am with Amery, save I do not believe that is democracy, though it is desirable.

They did not emerge peacefully from the womb of philosophical or legal argument. They were secured by political action and debate.

But they [Human rights] are not the only rights that sustain the bonds of the United Kingdom's public realm. Supplementing them are more specifically British rights, such as the right to strike; the right to free health care; the right to safe working conditions; the right to equal pay for equal work; and the right t free primary and secondary education. Most of these British rights have foreign analogues but that does not detract from their British origins. They did not emerge peacefully from the womb of philosophical or legal argument. They were secured by political action and debate. .... [The Public Realm] is a gift of history, precious but also vulnerable. We, and not just remote elites, are responsible for its health; it is up to us to make sure it survives and prospers. We demean ourselves if we try to shuffle off the primordial responsibility onto others.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 97-98

What follows (p. 103-109) is excellent on the history.

Was there really no one in the White House or No. 10 Downing Street who remembered Kipling?

However, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the the grossest examples of what presentism mean in practice. No one with any knowledge of the murky manoeuvres that carved what is now Iraq out of the defeated Ottoman Empire after the First World War could possibly have thought it a good idea to try, by force of arms, to turn that artificial, riven state into a beacon of democracy for the Middle East. No one who had studied the defeats inflicted on British forces in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century would willingly have dispatched troops, with no knowledge of the local languages and culture, to that harsh terrain with its warrior ethos. Was there really no one in the White House or No. 10 Downing Street who remembered Kipling?

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your gawd like a soldier.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 66

Personally, I find it comforting that some people also base their opposition to Iraq and Afhganistan on  practical grounds rather than the absurdity of UN sanctioned international law.

All that happened was that new elites, most of whom had little or no sense of public duty, took their place

The fall of the old elites did not usher in a non-elitist nirvana. All that happened was that new elites, most of whom had little or no sense of public duty, took their place. Money and celebrity became society's chief yardsticks of merit and achievement, endlessly celebrated by gawking media.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 58

The Golitsyns were in fact not descendants of Riurik, the mythic founder of the first Russian state, but of Gedymin, a fourteenth century grand prince of Lithuania

He aid they knew all about Sergei, that he was a strident monarchist and fascist, and he called him "Prince Riurik, a class enemy, a foe of Soviet power." (Here Sergei, unwisely, pointed out that the Golitsyns were in fact not descendants of Riurik, the mythic founder of the first Russian state, but of Gedymin, a fourteenth century grand prince of Lithuania. The stunned interrogator found this elucidation neither helpful or to the point.)

D. Smith,  Former People (2012), 288

This did not necessarily mean she could work with old Slavic manuscripts

If, to paraphrase Lenin, the government administration was to become so orderly and well organised that even a cook could run the state, this did not necessarily mean she could work with old Slavic manuscripts ... [and] catalog [sic] books in every European language

D. Smith,  Former People (2012), 259

The sepoy councils resemble those juntas of young officers who seize power in modern states

The sepoy councils resemble those juntas of young officers who seize power in modern states. This is what national revolt often looks like. Just because the uprising is led by soldiers rather than by progressive intellectuals lately returned from the LSE or the London Inns of count, it does not mean that it does not have the seeds of modernity in it. It certainly cannot  be written off as a cry of rage against the modern world

F. Mount, The tears of the Rajas (2015), 581

He believed in 'socialism in one country', as long as it wasn't his own

Charles was a whiggish improving sort, who yearned to expropriate the landlords in favour of the true proprietors, the peasants who actually tilled the soil. Like many other modernizers, and there were plenty of them in India in the 1980s and 1840s, he would not have dreamed of applying these radical nostrums to England. He believed  in 'socialism in one country', as long as it wasn't his own.

F. Mount, The tears of the Rajas (2015), 398

Imagining that Napier had sent a one-word message 'Peccavi' - I have sinned

At least the annexation of Sind survives faintly in our memories, if only for the joke that Punch made about it, imagining that Napier had sent a one-word message 'Peccavi' - I have sinned. Posterity, literal-minded as ever, assumed that Napier really had sent such a message.

F. Mount, The tears of the Rajas (2015), 340

This is the most disappointing thing I have discovered for a very long time.

This view was not confined to British proconsuls. Karl Marx shared it too.

In truth, the British were  in a permanent dither about how best to raise the revenue on which their Raj depended. They began with, and never really lost, a sentimental attachment to the idea of Indian village life. As Sir Charles Metcalfe famously put it: '... Hindoo, Patan, Mughal, Mahratta, Sikh, English, all are masters in turn, but the village communities remain the same.' This view was not confined to British proconsuls. Karl Marx shared it too.

F. Mount,  The tears of the Rajas (2015), 189

It is a myth that there was only one great mutiny in India under British rule

It is a myth that there was only one great mutiny in India under British rule, one single aberration from the peaceful onward flow of the British Raj ... there were 110 uprisings between 1783 and 1900.

F. Mount,  The tears of the Rajas (2015), 71

Current global oil production [is] equivalent to the daily work of billions of invisible slaves

The last two centuries of extraordinary economic growth in high-income countries are largely due to the availability of cheap fossil fuels. It makes sense when you break it down: the energy contained in a single gallon of oil is equivalent to 47 days of hard human labour, making current global oil production equivalent to the daily work of billions of invisible slaves.

K. Raworth, Doughnut Economics (2017), 263

Introducing a monetary fine effectively wiped out any feelings of guilt

Ten children's say-nurseries all introduced a small fine for parents who were more than ten minutes late collecting their children at the end of the day. The parental response? Rather than arriving more promptly, twice as many parents started arriving late. Introducing a monetary fine effectively wiped out any feelings of guilt, and was interpreted as a market price for overtime care.

K. Raworth, Doughnut Economics (2017), 120

When most people skip the meeting, those who are left tend to be more extreme, because they care more about the outcome

If participation in political debate declines - if fewer and fewer voices engage in democratic debate - our politics will become more shrill and less balanced. When most people skip the meeting, those who are left tend to be more extreme, because they care more about the outcome... The correlation between ideological "extremism" and participation strengthened over the last quarter of the twentieth century, as people who characterize themselves as being "middle of the road" ideologically have disproportionately disappeared from public meetings, local organizations, political parties, rallies and the like. In the 1990s, self described political middle-of-the-roaders were about one-half as likely to participate in public meetings, local civic organizations, and political parties as the mid-1970s... The declines were smallest - averaging less than one-fifth - among people who described themselves as "very" liberal or "very" conservative.

D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (2000), 342

Prescient.

If you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half

The bottom line from this multitude of studies: As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half. if you smoke and belong to no groups, it's a toss up statistically whether you should stop smoking or start joining. These findings are in some way heartening: it's easier to join a group than lose weight, exercise regularly, or quit smoking.

D. Putnam, Bowling alone (2000), 331

My fate rests depends on not only whether I study, stay off drug, go to church, but also on whether my neighbours do the same.

In Chicago young black men who live in neighborhoods with lots of white-collar professionals are more than three times as likely to graduate from high school than are comparable young men who live in neighborhoods with less educated residents. These and dozens more studies suggest that people are profoundly motivated not merely by their own choices and circumstances, but also by the choices and circumstances of their neighbors. My fate rests depends on not only whether I study, stay off drug, go to church, but also on whether my neighbors do the same.

D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (2000), 312

Faith communities in which people worship together are arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America

Faith communities in which people worship together are arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America. "The church is people," says Reverend Craig McMullen, the activist co-pastor of the Donchester Temple Baptist Church in Boston. "It's not a building; it's not an institution, even. It is relationships between one person and the next." As a rough rule of thumb, our evidence shows, nearly half of all associational memberships in America are church related, half of all personal philanthropy is religious in character, and half of all volunteering occurs in a religious context.

D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (2000), 66

I thin this really sums up the two sided nature of US religiosity. It is their dominant vehicle for cohesion, but it's do resistant to institutionalisation that it can easily just go off the rails.

Ritualists had odd ideas about the truth

It [his face] looked honest, but you could never tell. According to local report the Vicar was a ritualist, and ritualists had odd ideas about the truth. They would, for instance, subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles and unblushingly invent ingenious ways to get round them.

D.L. Sayers, 'Shocks for the Inspector' in The Detection Club, The Floating Admiral (1931), 94

The fellow only has one virtue - his bluntness. He'll be ghastly if he loses that.

Sir Edgar grunted, he did not trust Clun's sympathy towards Gerald. He thought to himself, I hope Clun isn't going to start getting sanctimonious. The fellow only has one virtue - his bluntness. He'll be ghastly if he loses that.

A. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon attitudes (1956), 320

Fidelity, in my youth, was largely a question of bad roads and poor bus services

Fidelity, in my youth, was largely a question of bad roads and poor bus services - the crack-up began when we began to move about. Now mobility and overcrowding offer so many alternative choices and proliferation of loves that faithfulness to one person almost suggests dim-wittedness.

L.Lee, 'Notes on marriage' Village Christmas and other notes on the English year (2015), 122

One finds almost every type of our landed gentry

In Robert of Berkeley's long line of heirs and collaterals, one finds almost every type of our landed gentry - from the dull unremembered, the studious and devout, the plain country farmer and fiery squire, to the schemer, eccentric, cultured patron of the arts, military hero, rakehell and bounder. Many were fortunate enough to live lives of sylvan quiet. Others found their castle placed in the canon's mouth.

L.Lee, 'Lords of Berkeley Castle' Village Christmas and other notes on the English year (2015), 107

The silent killer of history’s obligation to truth and objectivity

British historians have viewed computing technology variously as the handmaiden of postmodernism, as a witless accomplice in the collapse of narrative, and as the silent killer of history’s obligation to truth and objectivity

W. G. Thomas III, ‘Computing and the Historical Imagination’, ed. S. Schreibman, R. G. Siemens, and J. Unsworth, A Companion to Digital Humanities (2004), 61

Not in my hands it isn't

There was also that all pervasive sense of eroticism that goes with the boredom of war

It was the fag end of the war, a quiet conspiratorial time with no secret lives; we were all in it, and by now we knew most things about each other – we shared and stuffed ourselves on them. There was also that all pervasive sense of eroticism that goes with the boredom of war, that freewheeling fantasizing that goes with displaced persons who are displaced through no fault of their own. The girls fell on the few men with an urgent and hungry disdain. They tidied the rooms of the bachelors and cooked for them. They took our shirts home at weekends and washed them.

L. Lee, 'Chelsea towards the end of the last war' Village Christmas and other notes on the English year (2015), 88

He'll be much godlier after he's dead

Am I supposed to feel so much awe and so on about the Godking? After all he's just a man, even if he does live in Awabath in a palace ten miles around with gold roofs. He's about fifty years old, and he's bald. You can see in all the statues. And I'll bet you he has to cut his toenails, just like any other man. I know perfectly well that he's a god, too. But what I think is, he'll be much godlier after he's dead.

U.K. Le Guin, The tombs of Atuan (1972), in eadem, Earthsea: the first four books (2016), 209

For on that shadowed catafalque rests the print of a spirit who when alive seemed to be all things living

For on that shadowed catafalque rests the print of a spirit who when alive seemed to be all things living - who was lover, soldier, artist, wit, master of language and prince of the will, who took fate by the heels and the scruff of the neck and shook it roughly into shape and order, defying its betrayals, indifference and threats, commanding its obedience by obstinacy and bluff, outstaring its masks of disaster till it yielded to victory ad danced to the tune he wanted.

L.Lee, 'The lying in state' Village Christmas and other notes on the English year (2015), 20

Of all moments in childhood this must remain the most haunting

And when it happened, it was like the opening of a flower in the dark, the sudden ripening of fruit on the bough. A minute ago there was just the limp dead stocking. Now it hung heavy, bulging with gifts. Of all moments in childhood this must remain the most haunting, most unforgettable: the drowsy hand in the cold of the winter’s dawn reaching out as a test of hope, then suddenly finding itself filled with this weight of love, bestowed silently while it slept.

L.Lee, 'Village Christmas' Village Christmas and other notes on the English year (2015), 9

You can find a bishop anywhere, totally untrained, but all ready-made in dignity

How is it that precious stones are hard to find, fertile land rare, bad horses everywhere, and good ones bred only  in rich stables; but that you can find a bishop anywhere, totally untrained, but all ready-made in dignity

Gregory of Nazianzus, Concerning himself and the bishops (381), 389-92
tr. D.M. Meehan,, Three poems (1986), 61

A reminder that wrangling over appointment to the episcopate is not a modern phenomenon

They differed once about whether the earth rotates on its own axis in space or stands on the head of an ox

On subjects outside religion, their disputes were not infrequent. For example, they differed once about whether the earth rotates on its own axis in space or stands on the head of an ox. When she found the boy insistent, she backed down and pretended to give in. All the same, she slipped off to Fahmy's room to ask him about the truth of the ox supporting the earth, and whether it still did. The young man thought he should be gentle with her and answer in language she would like. He told her that the earth is held up by the power and wisdom of God. His mother left content with this answer, which pleased her, and the large ox was not erased from her imagination.

N. Mahfouz, Palace Walk (1956), tr. W.M. Hutchins and O.E. Kenny (1990), 64

I feel as uneasy as I do if there is no evidence of wine glasses or bottles

In fact, if I go into a friend's dining room and see no loaf on the table, I feel as uneasy as I do if there is no evidence of wine glasses or bottles. Now that I've been forced into making my own bread, I often take it with me. Nobody takes any offence ... It's only a matter of time before the braver and angrier among us start taking our own bread to restaurants. After all there are plenty of establishments to which we may take our own wine. I see nothing to prevent us taking our own bread as well. The restaurateurs can always increase their cover charges t include the loan of a bread knife - if they have one.

E. David, 'The Baking of an English Loaf', collected in J. Norman (ed.) Is there a nutmeg in the house? (2000), 220

NB. When Elizabeth David talks of being 'forced' to bake her own bread, she means because commercial bread is substandard, not actually being forced.

Gained considerable reputation as a poet

Elsewhere in the same lists of what has become its most famously poignant number, Wisden reported the death of Sub-Lieutenant Rupert Brooke, who left a corner of an Aegean field forever England by succumbing to sunstroke on Lemnos in April 1915. The almanack scrupulously documented his 1906 Rugby school season of nineteen wickets at 14 before noting his having 'gained considerable reputation as a poet'.

G. Haigh, Stroke of genius (2016), 213

Rather like a history of the Balkans

A chronology of Australian cricket administration between the turn of the century and World War I reads back rather like a history of the Balkans: endless noisy wranglings, temporary alliances, and fights within fights.

G. Haigh, Stroke of genius (2016), 192

Force cannot be eliminated

Governments may think and say what they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are told the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these two weapons I would choose

A.C. de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (1950), 271

I asked the doctor to take my fingers off; he refused

My hand was a ghastly sight; two of the fingers were hanging by a piece of skin, all the palm was shot away and most of the wrist. For the first time, and certainly the last, I had been wearing a wrist-watch, and it had been blown into the remains of the wrist. I asked the doctor to take my fingers off; he refused, so I pulled them off myself and felt absolutely no pain in doing it.

A.C. de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (1950), 64

I then measured them by their prowess at sport or taste in Burgundy

We were the usual miscellaneous collection of brains and brawn, and though many of my contemporaries have become famous, illustrious in the Church, Politics and all the Arts, I then measured them by their prowess at sport or taste in Burgundy and remained unimpressed by their mental gymnastics 

A.C. de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (1950), 16

Most of these have now left most of us, thanks to antibiotics, plumbing, civilization, and money

Until a few decades ago, bacteria were a genuine household threat, and although most of us survived them, we were always aware of the nearness of death. We moved, with our families, in and out of death. We had lobar pneumonia, meningococcal meningitis, streptococcal infections, diphtheria, endocarditis, enteric fevers, various septicemias, syphilis, and, always, everywhere, tuberculosis. Most of these have now left most of us, thanks to antibiotics, plumbing, civilization, and money, but we remember.

L. Thomas, 'Germs', The Lives of a Cell (1974), 76

A typical scientific paper has never pretended to be more than another little piece in a larger jigsaw

A regular journal carries from one research worker to another the various... observations which are of common interest.... A typical scientific paper has never pretended to be more than another little piece in a larger jigsaw-not significant in itself but as an element in a grander scheme. This technique, of soliciting many modest contributions to the store of human knowledge, has been the secret of Western science since the seventeenth century, for it achieves a corporate, collective power that is far greater than one individual can exert

J.M. Ziman, cited in L. Thomas, 'On societies as organisms', The Lives of a Cell (1974), 15

Like most people of weak moral fibre he was thoroughly engaging

Most of all I enjoyed Steve's company. Like most people of weak moral fibre he was thoroughly engaging. It is a sad reflection that everyone admires people of strong moral fibre but nobody shows any inclination to stay with them for more than five minutes.

W. Cooper, Scenes from Provincial life (1950), 43

And to paint with passion, you must paint things that passionately interest you

And to paint with passion, you must paint things that passionately interest you, moving things, human things. Nobody, except a mystical pantheist, like Van Gogh, can seriously be as much interested in napkins, apples and bottles as in his lover's face, or the resurrection, or the destiny of man. Could Mantegna have devised his splendid compositions if he had painted arrangements of Chianti flasks and cheeses instead of Crucifixions, martyrs and triumphs of the great men? Nobody but a fool could believe it.

A. Huxley, Antic Hay (1923), 85

From the heyday of Waugh and Wodehouse, the brandy habit has declined amongst the British

From the heyday of Waugh and Wodehouse, the brandy habit has declined amongst the British but it's now massive amongst hip hop types in America. Courvoisier and Hennessy are the favoured brands. So successful has this unlikely collaboration been that Max Beaulieu, from cognac-expert.com, thinks their should be a statue of Busta Rhymes in Cognac. You should Google Beaulieu’s interview with the writer Nicholas Faith just to hear Faith reciting rap lyrics in his patrician English accent [it's from 13:05]. I was going to quote some but there is an awful lot of swearing.

It’s a long way from Wodehouse.

H. Jeffreys, Empire of Booze (2016), 169

In the Guardian article version of this chapter, he quotes Ja Rule’s (of whom I have never heard): “Feel the rage as it stirs behind me, I don’t give a fuck as they don’t give a fuck about me. I keep drinking Hennessy, bustin’ at my enemies.”

There was a very influential beer faction in the House of Lords that became known as the Beerage

There was a very influential beer faction in the House of Lords that became known as the Beerage. The Liberals blamed the loss of the 1874 General Election on the influence of the big brewers and distillers in the Conservative Party. Gladstone's Licensing Acts of 1870 had disturbed those vested interests. Gladstone wrote that "More immediately operative causes have determined the elections. I have no doubt what is the principal. We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer.

H. Jeffreys Empire of Booze (2016), 136