469
Sir Ector, who has searched fruitlessly for his brother for seven years, finds him at last, lying in state in the Joyous Gard.
At the close of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, written in the reign of Edward IV (1461-1470), the deaths of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere have afflicted Sir Lancelot with such grief that he too has died. His half-brother Sir Ector, who had been searching for Lancelot seven years, came too late; but over Lancelot’s body, lying in state in the chapel of the fortress called the Joyous Gard, he spoke these words.
Posted February 19 2021
470
Guy de Maupassant reflects on the way that a statesman’s place in history has so often been defined not by deeds or character but by his one-liners.
Guy de Maupassant is looking back over the sayings of some of France’s most famous rulers. Some sayings were witty, some heroic, some fatuous; many, he admitted, probably spurious. But all fixed the speaker in the mind, even making up for a humiliating defeat or an oppressive reign. It shows that what every statesman chasing a place in history really needs is a glib one-liner.
Posted February 17 2021
471
Those in Power may imagine that a docile and compliant public makes Government run more smoothly, but a society of that kind just won’t move forward.
John Stuart Mill was a firm believer in individual freedom, a conviction which led him to dissent from then-fashionable economic and social policy on women’s rights and American slavery. In On Liberty (1858), he warned politicians that a docile, on-message public might let the engine of State run more smoothly, but it will also rob it of any power to move forward.
Posted February 16 2021
472
The Wind and the Sun compete to see which of them can make an unsuspecting traveller shed his cloak.
The following Aesop’s Fable dramatises a lesson which would seem particularly relevant to the time in which we live. Blessings and persuasion will win hearts, whereas threats and force will win at most resentful compliance, and more likely angry rebellion.
Posted February 16 2021
473
Tom Pinch, who has seen at last what kind of man his apprentice-master Seth Pecksniff is, leaves Salisbury to seek a new life in London.
At the ripe old age of thirty-five, apprentice architect Tom Pinch has at last seen through his devious master Seth Pecksniff and is sitting on the box seat of the London coach, putting Salisbury behind him. And what a coach it is! Not simply a wooden carriage strapped to four horses, but a single organism, a living and breathing microcosm of London’s breathless glamour.
Posted February 15 2021
474
Abusive language, straw-man arguments and downright ‘fake news’ should have no place in civilised debate, but censoring them is far worse.
Addressing the issue of freedom of speech, John Stuart Mill turned his attention in On Liberty to the use of uncivil discourse and what we now call ‘fake news’. He admitted both were disagreeable and even dangerous, but felt that no action should be taken to police them. Such action makes the Establishment into judge, jury and executioner, and honest dissent is declared a sign of bad or even criminal character.
Posted February 10 2021