History and Literature: Macaulay's Essays On Clive and Hastings

This week our family shared an AirBnB in Milwaukee that is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It's located in the Prospect Avenue Mansions Historic District. For a handful of days we got a sense of how the other half lives. The rooms were spacious, the decor impressive. I began writing this in a study adorned with bookshelves and old books aplenty. The following passage is Page 1 from one of the books I found on a shelf in the "living room" area.  

Initially I was going to make this a trivia game by asking "Who wrote it?" My guess is that most people who read this blog would be left scratching their heads so I'll tell you outright before you lose any sleep trying to figure it out. It's a wonderful bit of prose, informative and inviting.

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We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little interest. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa; but we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the massacre of Patna, whether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet 10 the victories of Cortes were gained over savages who had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of metals, who had not broken in a single animal to labor, who wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fishbones, who regarded a horse soldier as a monster, half man and half beast, who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer, able to scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. 

The people of India, when we subdued them, were ten times as numerous as the Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were at the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendor far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great Captain. It might have been expected that every....

As an opening page it whets the appetite and stimulates the imagination. Alas!

What authors are you reading as you wind up 2022? Yes, I know, there are too many books and so little time. Your schedule is already full? I'm sure that with a little imagination you'll find cracks in your schedule that will enable you to crack open a few more books in 2023, each one a world unto itself. 

If you've  been a regular--or even irregular--reader of this blog, "Thank you." I may slow down here but I will remain committed to make it worth your while to return.

May the coming year find you inwardly richer, wiser and a little more hopeful about the road ahead. 

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In case you missed this, here were the most read stories of 2022 at Ennyman's Territory.