Voters concerns

But it is a very safe rule in politics to assume that no population is ever disturbed by wholly imaginary grievances. In such cases, unquestionably, where there is smoke there is fire. Man is by far too lazy an animal to trouble himself much with agitation about purely unreal & non-existing wrongs


Justin McCarthy: A History of Our Time 1880

Prime Ministers & retirement

Gladstone - like many famous prima donnas - did not know when it was time to retire


Lord Groschen & his friends

October/November 1881: That enchanting new marvel, a telephone, has been put up, whereby Hawarden Castle & Rectory converse ad libitum. Uncle William [Gladstone], who is in some respects the greatest Tory out, will have nothing to do with it

The Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish

Investment bubbles

... one of those ever recurring gales in which long suspense & needless delay in the application & extension of scientific invention, has been followed by enthusiastic entertainment of new & novel enterprises, terminating in a wild & general mania

D Morier Evans: Facts, Failures & Frauds 1859

Censorship

Thomas Bowdler has shewn the truth of the old saw, that the nicest person has the nastiest ideas, & has omitted many phrases as containing indelicacies which we cannot see


Contemporary review of The Family Shakespeare

Terrorist chic

Garibaldi is in England, which fact makes everyone stand on their heads; & I suppose all young ladies will shortly appear in red shirts, which, to my disgust, have come into fashion

The Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish 8 April 1864

Material world

In an age in which material success in every branch of life & in none more than politics, is worshipped to idolatry

Vanity Fair 1872