Essayists From England

"To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them."

"The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair."

"Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."

"A consistent man believes in Destiny — a capricious man in Chance."

"A man's fate is his own temper."

"Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life."

"I repeat that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist."

"Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter."

"In politics nothing is contemptible."

"There is moderation even in excess."

"Variety is the mother of Enjoyment."

"Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books."

"There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour."

"Fear makes us feel our humanity."

"I hate definitions."

"Beware of endeavouring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds."

"The Services in war time are fit only for desperadoes but, in peace, are fit only for fools."

"The microcosm of a public school."

"I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up."

"I declare that England, with all her imperfections, is worth all the world together, and I hope it is not misanthropy when I feel that I love lakes and mountains better than courts and cities, and trees better than men."

"Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world."

"Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings."

"[I]n speaking of Italy, romance has omitted for once to exaggerate."

"Head of Christ by Morales, exactly as in the description in the pseudo letter of the Roman Proconsul. Morales well entitled to his surname of Divino... [T]he auburn locks seem only prevented from growing over the countenance by the moiety of the star which forms the glory: everything which can even be conceived as necessary to the formation of a face of perfect beauty, but nothing earthly in the appearance. You could not mistake the head for an Apollo or an Adonis. The eyes, beaming with human beauty, are nevertheless bright with the effulgence of celestial light, and fixed upon no particular object. They seem looking on the world. The nose is exquisitely formed, and the flesh tints seem immortal."

"Cathedral High Mass. Clouds of incense and one of Mozart's sublimest masses by an orchestra before which San Carlo might grow pale. The effect inconceivably grand. The host raised, and I flung myself on the ground."

"Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845)."

"Coningsby (1844)"

"You know who critics are?— the men who have failed in literature and art."

"I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man."

"Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing."

"When a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire."

"The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble."

"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."

"London is a roost for every bird."

"The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants; but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob."

"In assuming that peace will be maintained, I assume also that no Great Power would shrink from its responsibilities. If there be a country, for example, one of the most extensive and wealthiest of empires in the world—if that country, from a perverse interpretation of its insular geographical position, turns an indifferent ear to the feelings and the fortunes of Continental Europe, such a course would, I believe, only end in its becoming an object of general plunder. So long as the power and advice of England are felt in the councils of Europe, peace, I believe, will be maintained, and maintained for a long period. Without their presence, war, as has happened before, and too frequently of late, seems to me to be inevitable. I speak on this subject with confidence to the citizens of London, because I know that they are men who are not ashamed of the Empire which their ancestors created; because I know that they are not ashamed of the noblest of human sentiments, now decried by philosophers—the sentiment of patriotism; because I know they will not be beguiled into believing that in maintaining their Empire they may forfeit their liberties. One of the greatest of Romans, when asked what were his politics, replied, Imperium et Libertas. That would not make a bad programme for a British Ministry. It is one from which Her Majesty's advisers do not shrink."

"[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy."

"It cannot be denied that a state of great national prosperity is quite consistent and compatible with legislation in favour of the protection of native industry. That proposition, years ago, was denied; but with the experience we have had of France and the United States of America—the two most flourishing communities probably in existence—it is now incontestable. Well, my lords, many years ago—nearly 40—this country, which no one can say for a moment did not flourish with the old system of protection, deemed it necessary to revise the principles upon which its commerce was conducted...The scheme that was adopted was this—that we were to fight hostile tariffs with free imports. I was among those who looked upon that policy with fear. I believed it to be one very perilous."

"No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained... That is to a great degree the cause of this depression."

"A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty."

"We have been informed lately that ours will be the lot of Genoa, and Venice, and Holland. But...there is a great difference between the condition of England and those... We have during ages of prosperity created a nation of 34 millions—a nation who are enjoying, and have long enjoyed, the two greatest blessings of civil life—justice and liberty... [A] nation of that character is more calculated to create empires than to give them up, and I feel confident if England is true to herself; if the English people prove themselves worthy of their ancestors; if they possess still the courage and the determination of their forefathers, their honour will never be tarnished and their power will never diminish."

"[T]he government of the world is carried on by Sovereigns and statesmen, and not by anonymous paragraph writers, or by the harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity."

"A series of congratulatory regrets."

"Which do you believe most likely to enter an insane convention, a body of English gentlemen honoured by the favour of their Sovereign and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, managing your affairs for five years, I hope with prudence, and not altogether without success, or a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself?"

"Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country."

"We have brought a peace, and we trust we have brought a peace with honour, and I trust that that will now be followed by the prosperity of the country."

"His views on all subjects are original, but there is no strain, no effort at paradox. He talks as Montaigne writes. When he heard about Cyprus, he said: "You have done a wise thing. This is progress. It will be popular; a nation likes progress." His idea of progress was evidently seizing something. He said he looked upon our relinquishment of the Ionian Isles as the first sign of our decadence. Cyprus put us all right again."

"What, then, was that policy? It was a policy of conditional neutrality. Under the circumstances of the case we did not believe that it was for the honour or interest of England or Turkey that we should take any part in the impending contest; but while we enforced the neutrality which we prepared to observe, we declared at the same time that that neutrality must cease if British interests were assailed or menaced. Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own, have denounced this policy as a selfish policy. My Lord Mayor, it is as selfish as patriotism."

"The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend."

"It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England."