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WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF WHITBOURN
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What's New OR: 'Yo, ladies ... What's happenin ? Whatever Next ? [ Downs Lord Triptych / The Two Confessions / Amy-Faith & the Stronghold] | Dispatch dated 15th June 2006 ******
This time around, a relaxed summer discourse, devoid of literary content,
comprising quotes and comment regarding three gentlemen who might be considered
justifications for carbon becoming complex and forming humanity.
Some, or maybe all, are examples to us all or some of us - some of the time, in
certain circumstances...
Firstly, Robert Edward Lee,
the famous 'Robert E. Lee', 19/01/1807 - 12/10/1870. He was a life-long career army officer and the most
successful commander of the secessionist Confederate forces during the American
civil war of 1861-85, rising to become general-in-chief. He won victories -
with style - against the numerically Northern superior forces, although brute
economic power eventually wore him and the Confederacy down.
As Belloc or G. K. Chesterton - or, who knows, maybe Oscar Wilde – once
said - 'in the struggle between virtue and organised money don't bet the farm
on the former'.
At the same time (or more
likely, once the war was safely won) Lee won cross-party respect for his courtly
persona, humanity and for rejecting a continued guerrilla struggle in favour of
post-war reconciliation. Additionally,
he has come to symbolise a iconic personification of the best of the
Confederacy's aspirations - and thus some sort of solace to the battered -
indeed, ravished and humiliated - Southern states. Amidst gathering darkness and the death of old ways, I
presume he was a beacon of hope. Something of the same spirit must have inspired the writer who put the following words into the mouth of a chastened and wiser Rhett Butler towards the end of 'Gone With the Wind': 'I'm going back to Charleston, back where I belong... I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there is something left in life with charm and grace...'
Incidentally, he was the chap in the same eons-long film who was motivated to
express that wonderful catch-all, fits-all-sizes-of-problems, sentiment:
'Frankly my dear, I don't give a
damn...'
Wise words indeed...
But I digress, as I so often do. More
generally, Lee draws upon the romance of all failed causes nobly upheld.
Witness the residual appeal of Jacobitism or Enlightenment thinking.
Actually, no, upon reflection, scrub that last one, but you get the
drift... Also, Lee could be taken
as the last gasp of the Christian warrior ideal before modernity wrung even the
concept of glory out of war.
Thinking on, that particular grim process first really came to
inescapable attention in Lee’s time. At
the start of the American Civil War soldiers advanced into battle in massed
formations dressed in colourful uniforms. By
its end men in mud hued overalls lay on their bellies and shot at distant shapes.
Machine guns made their first hesitant appearance on the battlefield,
bayonets were used solely for opening ration tins and dashing cavalry charges
were suicide. People had their face
shoved into (often literally) the wonderful advances of science.
If only senior soldiers had been paying attention the American Civil War
would have prefigured 1914 for them in all its deadly lack of martial glory...
According to that perception, Lee was an anachronism: an attempt to put a
fine face on sordid slaughter. Naturally,
for that I rather warm to him...
From the public record - which seems to be in entire accord with private
recollections - Lee seems to have been an admirably, perhaps even painfully -
upright man. Someone you could trust with your wallet, wife or life - but
maybe not first choice for an evening of lager and laughs.
Which may be more of a comment on me than Lee...
Anyhow,
in the States you can buy a pack of 70 beautifully produced cards to be taken
one-per-day like medication, each containing an inspirational incident from
Lee's life, his recorded reflection on it and a modern commentator's stern moral
drawn from both. I flunked the
course by day three...
The following are not drawn from those cards-of-good-intention but give the
flavour of the man and his memory... Ø
'Study
human nature, more by experience than by precept.
Learn not to be deceived by the low, the cunning and the envious.' Ø
'You
must be aware of one thing, that those you deal with will consider their
advantage and not yours. So, while
being fair and just, you must not neglect your interests.' Ø
'Do
not worry about things you cannot help.' Ø
'Desire
nothing too eagerly, nor think that all things can be perfectly accomplished
according to our own notions.' Ø
'Shake
off those gloomy feelings. Drive
them away. Fix your mind and
pleasures upon what is before you. …
All is bright if you will think it so. All
is happy if you will make it so. Do
not dream. It is too ideal… too
imaginary, dreaming by day, I mean. Live
in the world you inhabit, look upon things as they are.
Take them as you find them. Make
the best of them. Turn them to your
advantage.' Ø
'I
consider the character of no man affected by a want of success provided he has
made an honest effort to succeed.' Ø
'The
struggle which you describe you experience between doing what you ought and what
you desire is common to all. You
have only always to do what is right. It
will become easier by practice, and you will always have enjoy in the midst of
your trials the pleasure of an approving conscience.
That will be worth everything else.' Ø
'My
experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance
in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors
is the best safeguard of morals and health.' Ø
'Men
need no stimulant; it is something, I am persuaded, that they can do without.' Ø
'You
will find it difficult, at first, to control the operation of your mind under
all circumstances … but the power can be gained by determination and practice.
If it had not been by this power, I do not see how I could have stood
what I had to go thorough with.' Ø
'Nothing
is more instructive than the perusal of the deeds of men in other ages.' Ø
'…
our God mixes in the cup he gives up to drink in the world, the sweet with the
bitter.' Ø
'In
the end I trust all things will work together for our good.' Ø
'Let
us all so live that me may live that we may be united in that world where there
is no more separation and where sorrow and pain never come.' Ø
'What
a beautiful world God in his loving kindness to His creatures has given us! What a shame that men endowed with reason and knowledge of
right should mar His gifts.' Ø
'Above
all things , learn at once to worship your Creator and to do His will as
revealed in His Holy book.' Ø
'We
are all in the hands of our Merciful God, whom I know will order all things for
our good, but we do not know what that is or what He may determine, and
it behooves us to use the perception and judgment He has given us for our
guidance and well being.' Ø
'Find
time to read and improve your mind. Read
history, works of truth… get correct views of life, and learn to see the world
in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when
summoned away, to leave without regret.'
And finally, the classic; Ø
'Exterminate
all the brutes!'
Actually,
I confess the last one wasn't really from Lee but another figure of interest
with an alternative perception of the 19th century and life in general: Mr.
Kurtz, of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ fame.
I admit I irresponsibly inserted it to liven things up.
But who is nearer the truth, Lee or Kurtz?
Who can say for sure? Answer:
all of us - later, allegedly. In
the immortal words of that loveable appalling cynic, Charles II of England ( for
more of whom, see below )
‘At Doomsday, we shall see whose
arse is blackest...'
The specific context was upon being reproached in 1681 on his morality by
all-round bad-egg, the Earl of Shaftesbury, but those who have lived a certain
span of years on this Earth may well see a more universal application...
Meanwhile, returning to the good general Lee, I imagine a scene, from the
crueller kind of comedy show, resurrecting General Lee in full uniform to wander
through the mean - indeed Darwinian
- streets of some modern American city and seeing how far his dignity and
decency gets him there. I fear that
spittle and abuse would be the least of his problems...
Fortunately, as a young man he learned to be handy with lethal
instruments. Therefore the comedy
sketch develops as a SWAT team is mobilised to deal with a saintly retired
general who has just sabred some street scum.... Next, moving on from a good man to a man who admired good men but couldn't copy them, we come to England’s ‘Merry Monarch’… (all quotes drawn from 'King Charles II' by Arthur Bryant. 1931).
‘Alone, vilified, driven on every side, Charles remained clam and
patient. This middle-aged roué who liked to be easy and see those about
him so, was now fighting almost single-handed against an utterly unscrupulous
caucus and a maddened populace for the preservation of the English monarch and
of decent dealing in public life. To that contest he brought a cool
courage, a temper that to the outer world remained imperturbable, and a skill in
gauging the deepest designs of his adversaries that amounted to genius.
But that was just for show - inward reality seeped through to the outside
even in this master deceiver. In
the anxious weeks that followed, the King preserved his outward calm, declaring
that he would give the people all imaginable freedom in returning whom they
chose. But those near him noticed that he bit his nails to the quick - so
much sop that his thumb festered and he could obtain no sleep for pain.'
'Gazing that Christmas from his bedroom windows down the river, the king
could see the vanes of the city he had helped to build - symbolising in its
ordered red brick houses and classical temples, a new age of wealth and
far-reaching responsibilities - and above it, rising higher every week, the
walls of its vast cathedral; on Saturdays he could almost follow the upward
passage of his little surveyor going up in his basket to view the progress of
his handiwork. He had not done so badly, he reflected, by his people; he
had given them peace and prosperity after many years of unquiet; he had stood by
his friends; had kept his father's throne and honour. There were, of
course, many things he regretted: the scandal he had given by his far too easy
Court and life. But he was sensible of his misspent time, and lamented it.
He was not impatient to be reproached for these things; once he remarked to
those about him that he was going to hear little Ken * whom with his unfailing
eye for true humility and saintliness, he made that Christmas a bishop, tell him
of his faults.'
* [ Thomas Ken (1637 - 1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells.
When visited in 1683 by Charles and his... lively court, the Bishop
refused accommodation to the King's 'special friend', Nell Gwynne.
Charles immediately forgave but never forgot this rare outbreak of
Anglican backbone. ]
'Not that he set any great store by spiritual teachers and dogmas: he was
apt to agree with his favourite, Mr. Dryden, that priests of all religions were
the same. .... But though Charles thought of all kinds of worship
and Church government as but different fashions of the same cloak, he was no
agnostic. He had large notions of God's mercy, and could never believe
that He would damn one of His creatures for taking a little irregular pleasure
by the way. Long ago he had told his sister that he was one of those
bigots who regarded malice as a much greater sin that an poor frailty of nature.
To design mischief, to be cruel and deny compassion, of these at least he had
not been guilty; somehow, he trusted, he would climb up to Heaven's gate.'
In my book,
'The Royal
Changeling' (Simon & Schuster 1998), I perhaps presumptuously, took it upon
myself to confirm that he made it...
And last but by no means least, from Charles II's peppery days comes the
possibly very wonderful but certainly very interesting Thomas
Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1630 - 1673), English statesman and
politician. 'Out of these divergent elements arose one man of fire and iron - Thomas Clifford, a Restoration Stafford - heroic, passionate and reckless. Wedded from boyhood to bold measures, rugged and tempestuous as the Dartmoor from which his ancient race sprang, he stood that year at the King's side, a dark and sinister figure. Yet the gentle Evelyn spoke of him with affection as "a valiant, uncorrupt gentleman, ambitious and not covetous; generous, passionate, a most constant, sincere friend". Hotspur, ever ready to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, he was the very antithesis of Charles, and therefore perhaps appealed to him the more. On this rough hero the mantle of Minette [ Charles' beloved and recently deceased sister] fell. For those things for which she had pleaded he now urged - monarchy absolute, the ranks of ordered chivalry riding arrogant over traitors, and the Catholic Church at peace once more in an ancient land.' 'King
Charles II' by Arthur Bryant. 1931)
Clifford had dishonoured his integrity by becoming a lawyer but redeemed
himself by distinguished participation in the naval wars of the time.
Meanwhile, he became one of the five Counsellors who formed the infamous
'Cabal' who got up to all sorts of intriguing and high risk things (though
Thomas was probably the least important of them)
Clifford
served as Lord High Treasurer 1672 to 1673, until he declined to forswear his
faith and take an oath under the anti-Catholic 'Test Act'.
Tired of all the degrading wrestling around in the iguana-pit of
politics, he first resigned from his job, and then, possibly, from life itself.
He died, allegedly by his own hand ('strangled with his cravat upon
the bed' **) a few months after his retirement. **
Evelyn's diaries. 18/08/1673.
'But
one counsellor was past the reach of "the mighty terrible Parliament"
and the judgment courts of men. From the lonely Devonshire valley of his
forefathers, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, leaving behind all baubles - 'White
Staff', vast pictures of hunted beasts, Court, City and Country, and all the
timid hearts that dared not face their destiny - went out to meet his God.
The last words of this man,
who had followed his faith so blindly and heroically, were:
'Well, let men
say what they will; there is a God, a just God above.'
Fine final words - and for Clifford instantly verifiable once that
cravat had done its work. Were, I wonder, his high hopes immediately
vindicated? We shall see...
And to end, not with despair
but on a note of optimism - unsettling, stomach-acid inducing Parthian-shot
optimism granted - but optimism nevertheless:
'When the sins and errors of an age
have made the world impossible to live in, the next generation, seeking to make
life tolerable again, may be able to find no way save by the surrender of
cherished ideals, and so may find themselves compelled to cast about for new
dreams and purposes.'
Herbert Butterworth. ‘The
Whig Interpretation of History’. 1931.
Once
the melancholic pall of the above quotes has passed, enjoy the summer! JW
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