The Once and Future King (14).

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

“Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter.” p. 623.

“It was as if everything would lead to sorrow, so long as man refused to forget the past….” p. 623.

“We cannot build the future by avenging the past.” p. 624.

“Perhaps the great cause of war was possession.” p. 624.

“Ideal advice, which nobody was built to follow, was no advice at all.” p. 625.

“Advising heaven to earth was useless.” p. 625.

“Everybody wants to fight…but nobody knows why.” p. 627.

To be concluded.

The Once and Future King (13)

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

“The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.” p. 609.

“ ‘Now that the guns have come,’ said Arthur, ‘the Table is over.’ ”

“Arthur had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly.” p. 621.

“The service for which he [Arthur] had been destined had been against Force, the mental illness of humanity…but the whole structure depended on the first premise: that man was decent.” p. 621.

“He [Arthur] had conquered murder, to be faced with war.” p. 622.

“Why did men fight? Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hearts?” p. 622.

To be continued.

The Once and Future King (12).

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

Arthur: “It is a king’s business to prevent bloodshed if he can, not to provoke it.” p. 542.

“Nowadays the law was his [Arthur’s] chief interest, his final effort against Might.” p. 543.

“Mordred, glaring at his father [Sir Agravine] with blazing eyes announced without preamble: ‘We came to tell you what every person in this court has always known: Queen Guenever is Sir Lancelot’s mistress openly’ .”

Arthur: “When I was a young man, I did something which was not just, and from it has sprung the misery of my life; do you think you can stop the consequences of a bad action, by doing good ones afterwards? …I don’t…have been trying to stopper it down with good actions, ever since, but it goes on in widening circles…will not be stopped.” p. 570.

“She knew that they had reached a crisis of some sort.” p. 604.

To be continued.

The Once and Future King (11)

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

“…the faculty to look short life in the face….” p. 461.

“Guenever…it was her part to sit at home, though passionate, though real and hungry in her fierce and tender heart…no recognized diversions except what is comparable to the ladies’ bridge party of today…no occupation---except Lancelot.” p. 462.

The Round Table: “There had been the first feeling, a companionship of youth…the second, of chivalrous rivalry growing staler every year…until it had nearly turned to feud and empty competition…the enthusiasm of the Grail…now the maturer or the saddest phase had come, in which enthusiasms had been used up for good.” p. 468.

“If you achieve perfection, you die.” p. 468.

“Arthur, reserved and unhappy in the new atmosphere which had begun to pull away from him instead of with him….” p. 469.

“Nowadays, when a point of justice is obscure and difficult, each side hires lawyers to argue it out; in those days [the days of King Arthur] the upper classes hired champions to fight it out—which came to the same thing.” p. 470.

To be continued.

The Once and Future King (10)

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

Arthur: “I ought to have rooted Might out altogether, instead of trying to adapt it.” p. 423.

Lionel: “Give me a moral man who insists on doing the right thing all the time, and I will show you a tangle which an angel couldn’t get out of.” p. 432.

“…the world was beautiful if you were beautiful, and…you couldn’t get unless you gave…you had to give without wanting to get.” p. 453.

“He paused, still doubtful, half recognizing the moment as a cross-road of his life.” p. 454.

Lancelot: “Jenny, I have all my life been in another sin, the worst of all…pride that made me try to be the best knight in the world.” p. 455.

To be continued.

The Once and Future King (9)

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

“Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: For love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.” p. 375.

“Arthur was hoping to weather the trouble by refusing to become conscious of it.” p. 379.

“But it is always embarrassing to be loved.” p. 402.

“He disliked Mordred irrationally, as a dog dislikes a cat….” p. 417.

Arthur: “Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can’t do that.” p. 422.

To be continued.

The Once and Future King (8)

T.H. White. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1939.

Why read it? Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.

Ideas:

“Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the Commandments, without difficulty.” p. 368.

“Thank God for the aged/ And for age itself, and illness and the grave/ When we are old and ill, and particularly in the coffin/ It is no trouble to behave. p. 368.

“Youth: A chaos of the mind and body—a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight—a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, in Eternity—an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects—a heart to ache or swell—a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful….” p. 368.

“If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is being treated like a possession.” p. 371.

Lancelot: “It was not enough for me to conquer the world—I wanted to conquer heaven too.”

To be continued.