Quote of the Day (Frank Sullivan, on Why To ‘Keep Yule’ Even With ‘No Great Cause for Mirth’)

“It may be argued, and with some reason,

That we could skip this Christmas season,

There being no great cause for mirth

And precious little peace on earth.

Not me. I'm sorry, but I'll keep Yule

With any kindred spirit who'll

Accompany me in a Christmas caper,

So how's about it, Muriel Draper?”—Frank Sullivan, “Greetings, Friends!”, in The New Yorker, Dec. 23, 1939

“Greetings, Friends!” is a New Yorker tradition that began in 1935. Frank Sullivan, who started and maintained it for the next four decades, was, recalled his longtime editor Roger Angell in an interview with Jenna Krajeski eight years ago, not only one of the magazine’s early humor writers, but also “a famously charming and sociable guy” who often listed friends like the Marx Brothers and John O'Hara in these holiday verses. At its best, whether under Sullivan or the successors who carried on the tradition, Angell and, more recently, Ian Frazier, these Yuletide light verses still contain the same verve.

At one point or another, many of us have found “no great cause for mirth” anywhere, either in our personal lives or in the wider world. But back in 1939, this may have been even truer, what with a Great Depression not really shed yet (the economy had experienced another downturn in 1937-38) and, of course, war breaking out beyond the shores of North America. Even so, Sullivan found reason to rejoice—and so, in our own dark time, should we.

(By the way: If, like me, you may have wondered about Sullivan’s Muriel Draper reference, she was a society hostess, arts aficionado, decorator, and writer prominent in the Harlem Renaissance.)

Quote of the Day (Edmund Burke, on Why ‘Law and Arbitrary Power Are in Eternal Enmity’)

“Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist? To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will substitute will in the place of it is an enemy to God.”—Anglo-Irish politician-statesman—and conservative theorist—Edmund Burke (1729-1797), “Speech on The Impeachment of Warren Hastings,” Feb. 15, 1788

The subject of this searing meditation on power and the law was Warren Hastings, born on this day in Churchill, Oxfordshire, England, in 1732. Having risen through the East Indian Company to become the first de facto Governor-General of India, Hastings was accused of mismanagement and personal corruption while in power from 1772 to 1785. Edmund Burke (pictured), outraged by reports of abuses on the subcontinent, spearheaded the impeachment process against Hastings. 

The resulting trial before the House of Lords, extraordinarily long (from 1788 to 1795), ended in Hastings’ acquittal on charges of extortion and bribery, but not before Burke gave voice to some of the most compelling and eloquent thoughts on the proper exercise of power ever delivered by a Western statesman.

British historian and Whig politician Thomas Babington Macaulay vividly conveys the impact of Burke’s blistering four-day opening speech against Hastings, an autumnal burst of eloquence by the aging statesman:

“The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration even from the stern and hostile Chancellor Thurlow; and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the.resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard: and Mrs. [Richard Brinsley] Sheridan was carried out in a fit.”

The Hastings impeachment trial has had implications beyond Britain or even its overseas possessions such as India. Politics in the early U.S. republic still avidly followed the fortunes of Burke, who, even upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, had advocated for the necessity of reconciliation with the rebellious colonies and against the folly of abusing their rights.

For the United States, then in the midst of a furious debate on its own Constitution, the Hastings trial threw into sharp relief the question of impeachment’s use as a tool to redress maladministration, corruption, and abuse of power. 

The framers were influenced enough by what they read overseas to insert the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” into the founding document of their new republic, indicating that more than just treason was enough to require removal from office. The proceedings in England would influence the debates and denouements of subsequent landmark American impeachment attempts involving Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Burke pursued the case against Hastings despite the fact that Britain as a whole and even his own Whig Party was indifferent at best and hostile at worst to his cause. As the above quote indicates, he recognized the moral, not just political or legal, dimensions of the problem posed by Hastings’ wielding of power through the East India Company. His warning is as valid for 2017 America as it was for 1788 Britain: “he that will substitute will in the place of [law] is an enemy to God.”

At some time in the not-so-distant future, I hope that an American politician (and this is a real dream--a Republican!) will take the President and rake him over the coals with the same sense of outrage that Burke summoned against Hastings:

“I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honour he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!"

TV Quote of the Day (Robert Hughes, on the Future)

“Nothing dates faster than people’s fantasies about the future.”—Australian art critic, historian and TV personality Robert Hughes (1938-2012), The Shock of the New, Episode 4, “Trouble in Utopia,” air date Oct. 12, 1980, written by Robert Hughes, produced by Robin Lough

Tweet of the Day (‘Gia,’ on Becoming a Zombie)

“Honestly, my biggest fear about becoming a zombie is all the walking.”—Gia (a.k.a., Gashley Madison), tweet of Feb. 4,2017

Quote of the Day (Cardinal Newman, on Earth and Soul at Advent)

“Year after year, as it passes, brings us the same warnings again and again, and none perhaps more impressive than those with which it comes to us at this season. The very frost and cold, rain and gloom, which now befall us, forebode the last dreary days of the world, and in religious hearts raise the thought of them. The year is worn out: spring, summer, autumn, each in turn, have brought their gifts and done their utmost; but they are over, and the end is come. All is past and gone, all has failed, all has sated; we are tired of the past; we would not have the seasons longer; and the austere weather which succeeds, though ungrateful to the body, is in tone with our feelings, and acceptable. Such is the frame of mind which befits the end of the year; and such the frame of mind which comes alike on good and bad at the end of life. The days have come in which they have no pleasure; yet they would hardly be young again, could they be so by wishing it. Life is well enough in its way; but it does not satisfy. Thus the soul is cast forward upon the future, and in proportion as its conscience is clear and its perception keen and true, does it rejoice solemnly that ‘the night is far spent, the day is at hand,’ that there are ‘new heavens and a new earth’ to come, though the former are failing; nay, rather that, because they are failing, it will ‘soon see the King in His beauty,’ and ‘behold the land which is very far off.’ These are feelings for holy men in winter and in age, waiting, in some dejection perhaps, but with comfort on the whole, and calmly though earnestly, for the Advent of Christ.”—English cleric John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), “Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming,” The Newman Reader: Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 5