Yesterday I personally experienced four happenings that seemed to me to be uncannily related. These were: The television broadcast of the Victory Parade in Red Square, Moscow, the results of the Exeter City Council Elections with Labour clinging to power, the too numerous turn-out for the Exeter Pride Procession into Northernhay Gardens, and this passage from an eighteenth century literary work which I just happened to be reading in the afternoon:
" O Pharnabazus, I must confess that the very circumstance which is the cause of so much mirth to the gentlemen that accompany you, is the reason for my fears. On one side I see gold, and jewels, and purple in abundance; but when I look for men, I can find nothing but barbers, cooks, confectioners, fiddlers, dancers, and everything that is most unmanly and unfit for war.
"On the Grecian side I discern none of these costly trifles; but I see iron that forms their weapons, and composes impenetrable arms. I see men that have been brought up to despise every hardship and to face every danger that are accustomed to observe their ranks, to obey their leader, to take every advantage of their enemy, and to fall dead in their places raather than to turn their backs.
"Were the contest about who should dress a dinner, or curl hair with the greatest nicety, I should not doubt that the Persians would gain the advantage; but when it is necessary to contend in battle, where the prize is won by hardiness and valour, I cannot help dreading men that are inured to wounds and labours, and suffering; nor can I ever think that the Persian gold will be able to resist the Grecian iron.
"Pharnabazus was so struck with the truth and justice of these remarks, that, from that very hour, he determined to contend no more with such invincible troops; but bent all his cares towards making peace with the Spartans, by which means he preserved himself and his country from destruction." (my emphasis.)
l leave readers to find, or not to find, connections.
Source: Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton, 1783.
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