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.