Imagine having the power to command the ocean. It makes my fingers itch to possess it.

Mother gestures for us to fall in behind her as she and the priest lead the way towards the wooden church, the crowd parting like the sea before Moses. That’s one Bible story I like. Forget all the business with healing the blind and washing the feet of the poor. Imagine having the power to command the ocean. It makes my fingers itch to possess it.

L. Holland, Sistersong (2021), 24

She was dismissive of any notion that people in the past were essentially just like those of the present

She was dismissive of any notion that people in the past were essentially just like those of the present. ‘To pretend so,’ she declared forthrightly, ‘is an evasion and a betrayal, turning our back on them so as to be easy among familiar things.’ It was precisely the contrast between antiquity and the world of her upbringing, which felt as vivid to her as that between an Aegean summer and the drizzle of an English February, which helps to explain her passion for Alexander.

Tom Holland, 'Introduction', M. Renault, Fire from Heaven (1969), loc. 87

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ. No wonder that the first takes with disorderly people more than the last for if they may be saved without forsaking their Sins tis an easy thing to say they have Faith, but it is not an easy thing to forsake their Sins. 

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 270 [Sunday March 3, 1816]

This Man, an enemy to all Religion, an Assassin and Murderer and everything that is bad

The Ways of Providence are very Mysterious. That this Man [Napoleon], an enemy to all Religion, an Assassin and Murderer and everything that is bad should succeed in all his Enterprises in this extraordinary manner is beyond Conception. Besides his success must have so evidently a bad influence on the Moral World as to induce many to distrust the Providence of God and make them think that it will be to no purpose to cultivate Moral Goodness and Uprightness of Conduct. However I pray to God that this Year may yet unfold some matters which tend to forbode the downfall of this Wicked Usurper.

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 127 [Wednesday January 1, 1806]

It is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it

They have in this county a funeral Sermon to every Corpse which I do not approve of much for it is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it. It is paying the Clergyman for supressing the notice of the bad qualities of the deceased and speaking only of the good. This is not properly holding him forth as an example to be followed, for his neighbours will  recall what he really was and imagine they may go as they please and still get a good name at their death.

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 90-91 [Monday October 3 1803]