Entry type: Book | Call Number: 1531 | Barcode: 31290035226539 |
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Publication Date
1940
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Place of Publication
Sydney
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Book-plate
No
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Edition
First
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Number of Pages
62
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Publication Info
hardcover
Copy specific notes
Bookplate inserted; highlights in pencil throughout text include: [p. 7] ” We spend our years learning the meaning of a few great words. Take the word “Home” for instance, a purely English word without precise equivalent in other tongues; what does it mean to Englishman, from infancy to age, from generation to generation and from all the widespread places of their valiant pilgrimage? – Tenderness, intimacy, joy, splendour of love and hope and glory, gentleness, truth, justice, mercy, understanding and peace and much more besides, so that the ideal of perfect blessedness is compressed in England and America into one small word – and it also means to Englishman and to all their far out-lying sons of empire “The shrine in which is deposited the title-deeds of human progress” – to quote just one of Mr Churchill’s flying phrases.”; [p. 20] “On the ancient soil of England there will be no earthquakes. The English spirit will be trusted.”; [p. 22] “On the other hand, materialism and the pursuit of mere material ends has been alien to the English spirit ever since England became a nation. Her greatest gifts to mankind, originating probably beyond recorded history and gradually developing throughout the centuries, her humour and her poetry, her love of freedom, justice, truth and mercy leading her to elevate them to first place in public policy, her unparalleled literature, her science and her art, her love of games and sport, her old good manners and courtesy. her living religion, tradition and true chivalry – all the lovely and heroic things whose light illumines these dark days as it does her long history, and but waxes with the years, all these things are rooted in one soil – her rich and steadfast and spiritual perception. Against a glowing background of imperishable values she still sees, as her ancient saints and sages saw, the moving pageant of material things pass by across the stage of this our life and so judges them, for the sake of present, and, still more of future generations. Hence, having her perspective right, she laughs at what is really laughable (finding most things are), her native humour sparkling and burbling everywhere in town and country in the rich dialects of the common tongue. Hence, her immortal poetry, her soul’s voice, is tinged with a strange and lovely wistfulness, and hence also, nothing less than the great cardinal virtues which can serve as living bulwarks to her imperial life. And all these things she takes for granted and seldom speaks of them. Try to tell them to an Englishman and he turns away.”; [p. 26] “[The men of] England stand now in the world’s breach as their fathers stood before them. They are the present generation of those “good yeomen whose limbs were made in England” and they have the same stomach for the fight. For them also, freedom is something which has descended upon them from some far imperial region beyond the confines of this little life, having the dust of stars upon it and wearing the air of immortality. Because of these things, and because the glory of a great hour has come again upon them, the English once more go singing into battle. They look into the eyes of the death and laugh. When they become silent their anger shall be a devouring flame. The English nation may die but the English Spirit shall never be broken.”; [p. 33] “No nation must be allowed in future to smash world peace or enslave even its own people with lies.”
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