Chapter XVI: Things That Please Me

“I have culled a Garland of Flowers--
Mine is the string that binds them.”

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Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive!
(When catching Submarines).

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Seest thou a man diligent in business--he shall stand before Kings--he shall not stand before mean men.

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God who cannot be unjust,
Heedeth all who on Him trust.
Them who call on Him for aid,
Anguish shall not make afraid.
Trust him then in life. In death
He can give thee Living Breath!
After death the Life now thine
He can make the Life Divine.

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I never bother to bother about anyone who doesn’t bother to bother about me!

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[_Portrait by J. Mallia & Co., Valetta._

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FLEET, 1899–1902.]

“Put on the impenetrable armour of contempt and fortitude.”

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When danger threatens and the foeman nigh,
“_God and our Navy!_” is the Nation’s cry.
_But_, the danger over and the Country righted,
God is forgotten and the Sailor slighted.

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Never fight a Chimney Sweep; some of the soot comes off on you.

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Pas de Culte sans mystère.

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Ode to an Apple--

Newton saw an apple fall,
Eve an apple did enthral;
It played the devil with us all,
The Devil making Eve to fall.

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“Liberty of Conscience” means doing wrong but not worrying about it afterwards.

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“Tact” is insulting a man without his knowing it.

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Even a man’s faults may reflect his virtues.

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Sincerity is the road to Heaven.

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I thought it would be a good thing to be a missionary, but I thought it would be better to be First Sea Lord.

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Think in Oceans--shoot at sight.

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Big conceptions and Quick Decisions.

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Napoleonic in Audacity.
Cromwellian in Thoroughness.
Nelsonic in Execution.

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“Surprise” the pith and marrow of war!

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Audacity and Imagination beget surprise.

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Rashness in war is Prudence.

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Prudence in war is Imbecility.

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Hit first! Hit hard! Keep on hitting!! (The 3 H’s).

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The 3 Requisites for Success--Ruthless, Relentless, Remorseless (The 3 R’s).

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BUSINESS--Call on a Business man in Business hours only on Business. Transact your Business and go about your Business, in order to give him time to finish his Business, and you time to mind your own Business. [I had this printed on cards, one of which was handed to every caller on me at the Admiralty.]

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The Nelsonic Attributes--

(_a_) Self Reliance.
(_b_) Power of Initiative.
(_c_) Fearlessness of Responsibility.
(_d_) Fertility of Resource.

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Originality never yet led to Preferment.

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Mediocrity is the Road to Honour.

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Repetition is the Soul of Journalism.

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No difficulty baffles great zeal.

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The Pavement of Life is strewn with Orange Peel.

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Inconsistency is the bugbear of Silly Asses.

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Never Deny: Never Explain: Never Apologise.

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“To defy Power that seems omnipotent ...
Never to change, nor falter, nor repent.”

(SHELLEY.)

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Cardinal Rampolla got his Hat at a younger age than any preceding Cardinal. Asked to account for his phenomenal success, he replied:--It’s due to 3 things:

{ asked for }
I never { refused } anything.
{ resigned }

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The best scale for an experiment is 12 inches to a foot.

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Dread Nought is over 80 times in the Bible (“Fear Not”). So I took as my motto “Fear God and Dread Nought.”

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Moltke wrote as follows:

“A clever military leader will succeed in many cases in choosing
defensive positions of such an offensive nature from a strategic
point of view that the opponent is compelled to attack us in them.”

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In looking through a packet of ancient papers I find some youthful thoughts of my own and some others which evidently I thought very choice.

“Anything said before a lecture muddles it.”
“Anything after weakens it!”

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“There is nothing you can’t have if you want it enough.”

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The following extract is from Blake:

“He who bends to himself a joy,
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s Sunrise.”

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Dean Swift satirized the vulgar exclusiveness of those who desired the infinite meadows of Heaven only to be frequented by the religious sect they adorned on earth:

“We are God’s chosen few!
All others will be damned!
There is no place in Heaven for you,
We can’t have Heaven crammed!”

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Lord Dalling (Sir Henry Bulwer) codified his life in axioms and phrases. His intimate friend, Sir Drummond Wolff, says so. (By the way, Wolff’s father was a marvellous Bible scholar. I heard him preach the sermon of my life: it was extempore, on “The Resurrection.” A great friend of his told me that Wolff did really know the Bible by heart.) These are Lord Dalling’s sayings; he quotes Talleyrand for one of his rules of life:

“Acknowledge the receipt of a book from the author at once: this
relieves you of the necessity of saying whether you have read it.”

Again this is excellent:

“You cannot do anyone more good than by trying unsuccessfully to
do him an injury.” (Mr. Labouchere gave me the same reason for
attacking me in his paper _Truth_.)

“Nothing is so foolish as to be wise out of season.”

“The best trait in a man’s character is an anxiety to serve those
who have obliged him once and can do so no more.”

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Nelson’s Ipsissima Verba.

“Do not imagine I am one of those hot-brained people who fight at
an immense disadvantage without an adequate object ... in a week’s
time I shall get reinforcements and the enemy will get none, and
then I must annihilate him.”

It was not “Victory” that Nelson ever desired. It was “Annihilation!”

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Moses, Gideon and Cromwell.

Moses and Gideon were each of them summoned straight from their simple daily task to go and help their fellow countrymen, and both were able to perform the task allotted to them in spite of their first great doubts of their fitness for the work. The figure of Moses looms through the Ages as gigantic as the Pyramids, and nearer home and in a lesser sphere stands our English Cromwell, the Great Protector!

“I would have been glad,” said Cromwell, “to have lived on my woodside or kept a flock of sheep rather than have undertaken a government like this.” And yet in the end he had undertaken it because he said he “had hoped he might prevent some imminent evil.”

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Suffragettes.

The nine Muses were all women.
The three Graces were all women.

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A great philosopher has stated that a woman can be classed under two categories:

1. A mother, a mistress and a friend; or,
2. A comrade and queen and child.

A woman is really rooted in physical reality, and all the above six attributes of the philosopher always live in her.

Thus the Song of Solomon produced a passionate commodity, but it required the Mary Magdalene of the Gospel to express the _summum bonum_ of a woman of “Greatly Loving.”

In the first prayer book of A.D. 1549 there was a Collect for her! No other woman had a Collect except the Virgin Mary.

Emotion, self-surrender, selflessness, immortal courage, wondrous physical beauty! Mary Magdalene was a great human reality. It is quite obvious she was no debauchee or her Beauty would have failed, nor could she have been a “hardened” sinner or she would have scoffed!

What was her history? What caused her lapse? Who was her Betrayer?

“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.”

And is it not very striking that St. Peter, who dictated St. Mark’s Gospel, records in the 16th chapter, verse 9, of St. Mark, that the first person in the world to whom the Saviour showed Himself after His Resurrection was Mary Magdalene?

“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared _first_ to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with Him as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was alive and had been seen of her, believed not.”

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A Sun-Dial that I Love.

Que Dieu éclaire les heures que je perds.
(May God light up the hours that I fail to light.)

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Though hidden yet from all our eyes,
He sees the Gideon who shall rise
To save us and His sword.