A few wise words from William Gladstone

The UK statesman and former four-time Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone has been mentioned in a few articles, including one about his enemy and rival Benjamin Disraeli's rise to political power.

I knew very little about Gladstone at the time; unlike Disraeli, he had never caught my interest or imagination. I did know though that he is mentioned many times in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus books, the wonderful fantasy trilogy that features London, magic and alternative history.

This extract is from The Amulet of Samarkand, the first book in the series:

"...Gladstone...was the most powerful magician ever to become Prime Minister. He dominated the Victorian Age for thirty years and brought the feuding factions of magicians under government control. You must have heard of his duel with the sorcerer Disraeli on Westminster Green?”

I suddenly remembered the Bartimaeus references recently; it then occurred to me that if Gladstone had inspired Jonathan Stroud enough to be featured in his books, the great Victorian politician might be worth a quick investigation.

I soon found a few good quotations to highlight here.

Feeling versus thinking
I have found this statement to be very true – and the examples I have seen very annoying:

“Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.”

These words may seem unoriginal and to state the very obvious, but they come close to home. People who get all emotional, won't listen to reason and ignore the evidence are a big pain!

The love of books and reading
William Gladstone is said to have been a voracious reader and great scholar from an early age.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard died on May 14th 1925

The death of Sir Henry Rider Haggard occurred on May 14th 1925, one hundred years ago today. 

I was addicted to his novels throughout much of my childhood, so I decided to mark the occasion with a few words in recognition of the huge amounts of enjoyment – and the education - that they gave me. 

My first encounter with Rider Haggard's stories
I remember my introduction to Rider Haggard's romantic and exciting adventure stories very clearly. King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain were published in strip form in a children's comic that I used to buy each week; there were strings of colourful pictures, each with a block of text underneath. 

I enjoyed my first encounter with these fascinating stories very much. I remember finding Captain Good's white legs in King Solomon's Mines very amusing, but the portrayals of the old witch Gagool in the same story and the attack by giant intelligent crabs in Allan Quatermain were rather scary!

Not exactly the same, but fairly similar to what I read in the comic:

My next encounter with Rider Haggard's stories
I soon graduated from the simplified and condensed adaptions to the complete versions of Rider Haggard's two adventure stories: books from the public library intensified the addiction that the comic strips had started. I also discovered several more of his novels that were just as enjoyable as the first two.

These stories provided more than just entertainment and escape: they expanded my vocabulary and increased my knowledge of history, geography and politics.

A major problem was that my library stocked only the most popular novels; it was very frustrating to see the long list of Rider Haggard's other works on the 'By the same Author' page in the books and be unable to read any of them!

Getting most of the remaining books on a plate
As mentioned in one of the many articles about public libraries, soon after my family moved to London I joined a very good local library; the new school I went to had a library with a stock of good books too. Even so, there were still many unread Rider Haggard books that I wished and wished I could get hold of.

Money and hate: two quotations that come very close to home

Two quotations that made a big impression on me when I first came across them many years ago suddenly surfaced in my mind recently. After realising how very applicable they are to many people and their lives, I decided to feature them in a short article.

A very unfair aspect of life
I once read something that resonated very strongly. I can't remember where I read it or what the exact wording was, but it was something like this:

“Not having money is much worse than having money is good.”

I agree with this proposition, and I think that it can be applied to many things other than money. It seems obvious to me that while being in possession of certain things might not bring us any particular benefit, we would definitely be much worse off without them. In other words, the disadvantages that come from not having something may greatly exceed the advantages of having it.

Some things are conspicuous mainly by their absence.

Someone who leaves school with little or nothing in the way of marketable qualifications or skills may be in big trouble, whereas someone who has achieved a string of good exam results and mastered some basic abilities may find that these attainments are no big deal. The first person may be way behind the majority, but the second one will not be ahead of the crowd. 

Someone who hates their job so much that they go down to minus 100 on the happiness scale is unlikely to reach plus 100 if they get work that they really enjoy: they will be lucky if they get to plus 10! 

The above two examples come from personal experience.

Upton Sinclair's wise words about checking the evidence

Some of the American author Upton Sinclair's wise words that resonate strongly with me have been quoted in previous articles, including, for example, one about the difficulty of getting through to people and another that contains his description of what it feels like to be used and thrown aside. 

I intended to search for more article-inspiring material from Upton SInclair at the time, but other topics intervened. I recently decided to take a further look, and I found another good quote to highlight:

"It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence." 

This speaks for itself. It may state the obvious, but it is very true. 

Where the proposition that unseen forces are at work in some people's lives is concerned for example, I have seen many examples of both automatic, immediate, mindless, enthusiastic acceptance of the idea and automatic, immediate, mindless, contemptuous denial and dismissal of even the possibility. 

Both types of reaction are indeed foolish; I think of these positions as two sides of the same bad coin.

It is good practice to neither believe nor disbelieve, but entertain possibilities. It is best to consider the evidence or lack of it and look at the cases for and against before making any decisions and commitments.

A last look through Conan Doyle's Magic Door

The final article in the series inspired by Through the Magic Door, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of 12 essays about books, writers and reading, has been outstanding for some time now. 

The last in a string of book-inspired posts is often the most difficult to produce; it isn't easy to let a good book go! Then there is the uncomfortable feeling that some key commentary-inspiring material might have been overlooked, which means retaining the book on standby for just one more trawl-through when time permits.

I now feel that enough is enough; at long last the time has come to call it a day. I have made a final journey through the Magic Door for the purpose of producing just one more article, and I found a little more interesting material to highlight.

Tales of some tubs
As previously mentioned, Conan Doyle describes the tempting tub of bargain books that stood outside the door of a bookshop that he used to pass on the way to buy his lunch;  each time he went to get something to eat, he had to decide between spending his budgeted threepence on food or doing without and buying a book for the same amount of money instead. 

He twice mentions Jonathan Swift's satirical work A Tale of a Tub; this was one of the cheap treasures that he found when digging in the tub!

This reminds me of a similar scene in Dion Fortune's Goat-Foot God. A twopenny bargain bin that stands outside a bookshop tempts a passer-by into looking for gold among the gravel. He finds a good book that 'by chance' was put in the bin by mistake. When he goes inside to pay, a whole new life opens up to him.

Macaulay's Essays
Conan Doyle says that Macaulay's Essays opened up a new world to him. He describes how much this book meant to him:

“If I had to choose the one book out of all that line from which I have had most pleasure and most profit, I should point to yonder stained copy of Macaulay's "Essays." It seems entwined into my whole life as I look backwards. It was my comrade in my student days, it has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part of my humble kit when I went a-whaling in the Arctic. Honest Scotch harpooners have addled their brains over it, and you may still see the grease stains where the second engineer grappled with Frederick the Great. Tattered and dirty and worn, no gilt-edged morocco-bound volume could ever take its place for me.“

This reminds me of Alan Quatermain and his copy of the Ingoldsby Legends that accompanied him everywhere.

Taylor Caldwell's topical words about governmental tasks

Taylor Caldwell, who had something insightful to say about the causes of major wars, wrote this in a historical novel set in ancient Rome:

“Antonius heartily agreed with him that the budget should be balanced, that the Treasury should be refilled, that public debt should be reduced, that the arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled, that assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, that the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence, and that prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible.”

From A Pillar of Iron (1965)

It is interesting to see how very relevant this is to what is happening in the US and the UK right now.

For example, major cost-cutting exercises are in progress in both places, both governments are cutting their foreign aid budgets, and in the UK new plans are afoot to get more people off benefits and into work.

A slightly altered version of the quotation:

An unpleasant bus incident with interesting implications

Jarring experiences on buses have been mentioned in several articles, including, for example, the one about another string of minor incidents. 

In many cases, these incidents happened just after I had been in contact with an energy vampire and wasn't feeling too good; the dynamics were different in the example featured in this post.

Many years ago, I returned to London after having had a very enjoyable day at the seaside. I was looking forward to having some tea and something light to eat when I got home; I was in a state that might be described as pleasantly tired but contented. 

As I waited for the bus outside Victoria Station, I noticed that the other people at the bus stop seemed to be in a similar, happy but rather subdued, state.

The bus came; we all got on. The small number of other passengers either conversed very quietly or sat in peaceful silence.

Everything changed when someone who seemed switched off, disconnected from what was going on around her, got on the bus a few stops later. Two formerly quiet men immediately became offensively loud and foul mouthed. 

I didn't think much of the incident at the time, but I later came to see it as supporting evidence for some of my ideas.

Trouble of various kinds breaks out around some people, but they are often oblivious of the effect they have on others. They may feel like victims, but they may unwittingly be the cause of bad experiences that they have.

I suspect that the men were influenced by the bad energy that surrounded the new bus passenger. It is possible that they had been drinking, which would have made them more open to contagion.

There is a lot to learn from incidents such as this one.

Victoria Station, where my day trip ended and the interesting bus ride began: