Extracts and sections of writing that I enjoy. I want this to be an aid to my remembrance.
The Rolling English Road (1913), final stanza — G.K. Chesterton
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage, Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age, But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth, And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death; For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (2005), pp. 58–60 — David Gilmour
The Victorians did not believe in homesickness. The young Curzon, as sentimental as a boy as he was as a man, believed it was a physical illness and congratulated himself that, miserable though he was on his first night at boarding school, he had experienced no actual desire to be sick. Few griffins admitted to homesickness in their letters home. Dismayed by the society of rough and heavy-drinking tea planters in Assam, a young Civilian might yearn for the panelled walls of his Oxford study. From the Punjab cantonment of Ambala, an ill and disheartened John Maynard might confess to his mother that he pined for a London fog or an Oxford Scotch mist. Yet such men stayed. Within a few weeks of his arrival, Maynard predicted he would be home the following Christmas.
But when the time came he had no regrets about staying in India. He could have been dreaming up schemes for the regeneration of mankind in the fire-lit glow of his college rooms, but now he had an active life in which he might achieve something beyond dreams. It was a common feeling. The exhilaration of responsibility, the realization of the power and potential to do good, were — at least in the early years — effective antidotes to nostalgia for home.
Haileybury men destined for northern India started their careers in Calcutta. There they were required to study the languages of their chosen province and pass two exams before being sent out to a district in Bengal, the Punjab or the North-Western Provinces. On arrival in the capital, they reported to the Secretary of the Board of Examiners, found themselves rooms in an agreeable boarding-house and quickly entered Calcutta 'society'. Their new status as apprentice administrators was immediately displayed by the acquisition of a horse, a groom, a dog and a personal servant or 'bearer'.
The life of a Haileybury griffin in Calcutta was pleasant, idle and expensive. Arriving in March, as the city warmed up in earnest, Beames followed a routine of tea on his veranda at six, a ride on the Maidan till seven, then more tea and a smoke with friends till nine when he settled down to a hefty breakfast of fish, mutton, curry and fruit, washed down by iced claret. He then spent two hours on his languages (one of them with a munshi, his teacher) before going out in a gig in the furnace of midday to pay calls on the fashionable ladies of Chowringhee. Tiffin, a similar meal to breakfast, understandably required a siesta which was followed by an evening ride to the Eden Gardens where he and his friends cantered along a turf road before dismounting at the bandstand and talking to ladies in their carriages. Dining and dancing got them through the rest of the day and a good part of the night.
Such a life, varied by shooting expeditions in cold weather, gave little incentive to griffins — except for the more conscientious and anti-social ones — to pass their exams and take up posts in the interior. It did, however, propel many of them into debt. Inexperienced with money yet conscious of high salaries in the future, they splashed out on horses, servants, wine and cards. Youths of 21 quickly found themselves encumbered with debts that took them decades to pay off. Robert Montgomery went into debt on his first day in Calcutta and remained so until he became Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab thirty years later.
To Althea from Prison (1642), first two stanzas — Richard Lovelace
When love with unconfined wings Hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lye tangled in her haire, And fetterd to her eye, The birds, that wanton in the aire, Know no such liberty. When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our carelesse heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes, that tipple in the deepe, Know no such libertie.