Preparation is - if not the key to genius - then at least the key to sounding like a genius.

"I have not made any arrogant, confident, boasting predictions at all. On the contrary, I have stuck hard to my "blood, toil, tears and sweat," to which I have added muddle and mismanagement, and that, to some extend I must admit, is what you have got out of it."

For the first time I heard shots fired in anger, heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through the air.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

Luckily ... there were Zulus and Afghans, also the Dervishes in the Soudan. Some of these might, if they were well-disposed, 'put up a show' some day.

God for a month of power & a good shorthand writer.