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11b2c15
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There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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a19d465
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The advantage to being a wicked bastard is that everyone pesters the Lord on your behalf; if volume of prayers from my saintly enemies means anything, I'll be saved when the Archbishop of Canterbury is damned. It's a comforting thought.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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e87377d
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If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by--though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed.
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sex
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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30d3b73
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I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman.
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gentleman
identitites
impersonation
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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a67928c
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I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that tim..
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ajax
ancient-greece
greek-heroes
martiality
hero
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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c308e10
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I'm as religious as the next man - which is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God. That's where so many clergymen... go wrong
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religion
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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62a03ba
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You never know what to expect on encountering royalty. I've seen 'em stark naked except for wings of peacock feathers (Empress of China), giggling drunk in the embrace of a wrestler (Maharani of the Punjab), voluptuously wrapped in wet silk (Queen of Madagascar), wafting to and fro on a swing (Rani of Jhansi), and tramping along looking like an out-of-work charwoman (our own gracious monarch).
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royalty
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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3eafebf
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I should have known better, of course. Whenever I'm feeling up to the mark and congratulating myself, some fearful fate trips me headlong, and I find myself haring for cover with my guts churning and Nemesis in full cry after me.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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ee73e95
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It was part of war; men died, more would die, that was past, and what mattered now was the business in hand; those who lived would get on with it. Whatever sorrow was felt, there was no point in talking or brooding about it, much less in making, for form's sake, a parade of it. Better and healthier to forget it, and look to tomorrow. The celebrated British stiff upper lip, the resolve to conceal emotion which is not only embarrassing and us..
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war
second-world-war
stiff-upper-lip
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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3beac0b
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This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can't be a hero and bad. There's practically a law against it.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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8dae6c9
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I was sufficiently recovered from my nervous condition - or else the booze was beginning to work - to be able to discuss with Rudi the merits of checked or striped trousers, which had been the great debate among the London nobs that year. I was a check-er myself, having the height and leg for it, but Rudi thought they looked bumpkinish, which only shows what damned queer taste they had in Austria in those days. Of course, if you'll put up w..
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metternich
stripes
trousers
fashion
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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4cc2ea2
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As I said to Speedicut, it's hell in the diplomatic.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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e8d6da7
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Now, look you here, Sekundar," says I, but he came up straight like a little bantam and cut me off. "Sir Alexander. if you please," says he icily, as though I'd never seen him with his breeches down, chasing after some big Afghan bint."
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mannners
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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e080573
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Any gang of politicos is like the eighth circle of Hell, but the American breed is specially awful because they take it seriously and believe it matters;
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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ed23624
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Elgin himself looked ten years younger, now that he'd cast the die, but I thought exuberance had got the better of him when he strode into the saloon later, threw The Origin of Species on the table and announced: "It's very original, no doubt, but not for a hot evening. What I need is some trollop." I couldn't believe my ears, and him a church-goer, too. "Well, my lord, I dunno," says I. "Tientsin ain't much of a place, but I'll see what I ..
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literature
trollope
misunderstanding
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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28484c9
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I know my Easts and Tom Brown, you see, and they're never happy unless their morality is being tried in the furnace and they can feel they are doing the right Christian thing and never mind the consequences to anyone else.
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george-macdonald-fraser
self-righteousness
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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956e415
|
they did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called "fascist"
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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55afa62
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He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in w..
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heart
love
thunder
misery
voice
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George MacDonald |
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459f068
|
We stood there for a full half hour, like so many scarecrows, while they jeered at us from a distance, and one or two of us were shot down.
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war
targets
vulnerability
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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8c84568
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Walking the plank is a Victorian fiction, and I will not have it on my ship!
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history
humour
pirates
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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2075049
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I mention the fact here because it shows how great events are decided by trifles. Scholars, of course, won't have it so. Policies, they say, and the subtly laid schemes of statesmen, are what influence the destinies of nations; the opinions of intellectuals, the writings of philosophers, settle the fate of mankind. Well, they may do their share, but in my experience the course of history is as often settled by someone's having a belly-ache,..
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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0015e82
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Most of us do not think of ourselves as criminals, but possibly there are things in our daily lives which we regard as our "inheritance" which will move future generations to critical disgust."
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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30bc640
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On occasion they were cut down in cold blood or hanged on the spot; in the saying of the Border, which has passed into the language, they had been taken "red-hand", which was "in the deede doinge", and the law was not likely to call a trod-follower to account if his rage got the better of him and he despatched a reiver out of"
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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4b4c14b
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And both were more fortunate than Hecky Noble who, within a few nights of Mrs Hetherington's widowhood, was a victim of that gay desperado, Dickie Armstrong of Dryhope,49 and his 100 jolly followers. Apart from reiving a herd of 200 head, and destroying nine houses, the raiders also burned alive Hecky's son John, and his daughter-in-law, who was pregnant.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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0881de1
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If anything in their history demonstrates that the Scots are remarkable, it is that in spite of being physically attached to England, they have survived as a people, with their own culture, laws, institutions, and, like the English, their own ideas.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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2f15610
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England was a menace to Scotland because Scotland was, by its separate existence, a constant anxiety to England.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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3184778
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But I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment --in short, for the true talent for catastrophe -- Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day. Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such ruinous defeat. It was not e..
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stupidity
military
failure
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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3a704f3
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what is thought now, and held to be universal truth, was not thought then, or true of that time.
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judgment
memory
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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e21639c
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Now, in my experience there is only one way to fight a ship, and that is to get below on the side opposite to the enemy and find a snug spot behind a stout bulkhead.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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67ba8c8
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just a decent resolve to do a government's first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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642d50c
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before serious Anglo-Scottish political differences began, there was a north-south dispute over the manner in which priestly heads should be shaved.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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07b693c
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On the credit side, there is a Border virtue which in the human scale should outweigh all the rest, and it is simply the ability to endure, unchanging. Perhaps the highest compliment that one can pay to the people of the Anglo-Scottish frontier is to remark that, in spite of everything, they are still there.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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9e49202
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Out of the historic tangle, there certainly emerged among English kings a belief that they had, traditionally, some kind of superiority over the Scottish king, and no doubt a feeling that for the sake of political security and unity--one might say almost of tidiness--it would be better if Scotland were under English control, or at best, added to England. This attitude can be charitably seen as politically realistic, or at the other extreme,..
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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b360196
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Now Malcolm was back again, but he came once too often, and was killed at Alnwick in 1093.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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b644715
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And then peace broke out. It seems surprising, in view of what had been and what would one day follow, but there now began an era of tranquillity between England and Scotland, and consequently along the Border, which was to endure almost uninterrupted for nearly two hundred years.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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c54f6ff
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wordy descriptions of the journey, which you can get from Parkman or Gregg if you want them - or from volume
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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6f30f7e
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man when I see one - and he was the best.7
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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f0a4310
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I'd have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary--the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo-jumbo, were as good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is religion for? In
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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ba1ecad
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the guard house of the bloodiest valley in Britain. One is not surprised to learn that an early owner was boiled alive by impatient neighbours; there is a menace about the massive walls, about the rain-soaked hillside, about the dreary gurgle of the river.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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ef8a1cb
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England had another line of defence, in the establishment of numbers of "slewdogges"48 for the tracking down of raiders; money was raised for their maintenance, and from the number of them stolen in raids it is obvious that they were highly prized. They could be worth as much as PS10." --
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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7b61df2
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the Borderers regarded reiving as legitimate (which is true), but that they held murder to be a crime, and consequently were reluctant to commit it--except in the heat of action or when covered by the virtual absolution of deadly feud. It is rather like saying that a heavy drinker, in his sober moments, is an abstemious man.
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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663d498
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And my good lord, for your honors better satisfaction, that it was not so barbarouslie nor butcherlie don as you thinck it to be, it should seeme your honor hath bene wrongfullie enformed, in sayinge he was cutt in manye peeces, after his deathe--for if he had bene cutt in many peces, he could not a lived till the next morninge, which themselves reported he did--which shewes he was not cutt in verie many peeces!
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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88693f6
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You are a sorry creature, Flashman. I have failed in you. But even to you I must say, this is not the end. You cannot continue here, but you are young, Flashman, and there is time yet. Though your sins be as red as crimson, yet shall they be as white as snow. You have fallen very low, but you can be raised up again ...
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George MacDonald Fraser |
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1634645
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The golden age, of Scotland, of Anglo-Scottish harmony, and of the Border country, ended when King Alexander III of Scotland fell over a cliff in 1286. Few stumbles--if indeed His Majesty was not pushed--have been more important than that one.
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George MacDonald Fraser |